Accelerated Object Tracking with Local Binary Features

Multi-object tracking is a problem with wide application in modern computing. Object tracking is leveraged in areas such as human computer interaction, autonomous vehicle navigation, panorama generation, as well as countless other robotic applications. Several trackers have demonstrated favorable results for tracking of single objects. However, modern object trackers must make significant tradeoffs in order to accommodate multiple objects while maintaining real-time performance. These tradeoffs include sacrifices in robustness and accuracy that adversely affect the results. This thesis details the design and multiple implementations of an object tracker that is focused on computational efficiency. The computational efficiency of the tracker is achieved through use of local binary descriptors in a template matching approach. Candidate templates are matched to a dictionary composed of both static and dynamic templates to allow for variation in the appearance of the object while minimizing the potential for drift in the tracker. Locality constraints have been used to reduce tracking jitter. Due to the significant promise for parallelization, the tracking algorithm was implemented on the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) using the CUDA API. The tracker\u27s efficiency also led to its implantation on a mobile platform as one of the mobile trackers that can accurately track at faster than realtime speed. Benchmarks were performed to compare the proposed tracker to state of the art trackers on a wide range of standard test videos. The tracker implemented in this work has demonstrated a higher degree of accuracy while operating several orders of magnitude faster

Deception/Truthful Prediction Based on Facial Feature and Machine Learning Analysis

The Automatic Deception detection refers to the investigative practices used to determine whether person is telling you Truth or lie. Automatic deception detection has been studied extensively as it can be useful in many real-life scenarios in health, justice, and security systems. Many psychological studies have been reported for deception detection.  Polygraph testing is a current trending technique to detect deception, but it requires human intervention and training.  In recent times, many machine learning based approaches have been applied to detect deceptions. Various modalities like Thermal Imaging, Brain Activity Mapping, Acoustic analysis, eye tracking. Facial Micro expression processing and linguistic analyses are used to detect deception. Machine learning techniques based on facial feature analysis look like a promising path for automatic deception detection. It also works without human intervention. So, it may give better results because it does not affect race or ethnicity. Moreover, one can do covert operation to find deceit using facial video recording. Covert Operation may capture the real personality of deceptive persons. By making combination of various facial features like Facial Emotion, Facial Micro Expressions and Eye blink rate, pupil size, Facial Action Units we can get better accuracy in Deception Detection

Gaze-tracking-based interface for robotic chair guidance

This research focuses on finding solutions to enhance the quality of life for wheelchair users, specifically by applying a gaze-tracking-based interface for the guidance of a robotized wheelchair. For this purpose, the interface was applied in two different approaches for the wheelchair control system. The first one was an assisted control in which the user was continuously involved in controlling the movement of the wheelchair in the environment and the inclination of the different parts of the seat through the user’s gaze and eye blinks obtained with the interface. The second approach was to take the first steps to apply the device to an autonomous wheelchair control in which the wheelchair moves autonomously avoiding collisions towards the position defined by the user. To this end, the basis for obtaining the gaze position relative to the wheelchair and the object detection was developed in this project to be able to calculate in the future the optimal route to which the wheelchair should move. In addition, the integration of a robotic arm in the wheelchair to manipulate different objects was also considered, obtaining in this work the object of interest indicated by the user's gaze within the detected objects so that in the future the robotic arm could select and pick up the object the user wants to manipulate. In addition to the two approaches, an attempt was also made to estimate the user's gaze without the software interface. For this purpose, the gaze is obtained from pupil detection libraries, a calibration and a mathematical model that relates pupil positions to gaze. The results of the implementations have been analysed in this work, including some limitations encountered. Nevertheless, future improvements are proposed, with the aim of increasing the independence of wheelchair user