Very fast visual tracking algorithm using scanlines

Scanlines, which are specifically processed rows or columns of a digital camera image, are used to develop a very fast visual tracking algorithm. The bottleneck of any visual robot tracking system is the large amount of data processed by the vision system in order to determine the pose (position and orientation) of an object moving in space. Scanlines provide a means of using minimal (if not the minimum) amount of information necessary for pose determination; thereby, increasing the sensor response time and the tracking speed. The scanline-based algorithm is developed to track the 6-dimensional pose of regular polygonal objects such as squares, triangles, and circles. Experimental verifications are provided for a single-camera and a dual-camera system