13,967 research outputs found
Event-based Vision: A Survey
Event cameras are bio-inspired sensors that differ from conventional frame
cameras: Instead of capturing images at a fixed rate, they asynchronously
measure per-pixel brightness changes, and output a stream of events that encode
the time, location and sign of the brightness changes. Event cameras offer
attractive properties compared to traditional cameras: high temporal resolution
(in the order of microseconds), very high dynamic range (140 dB vs. 60 dB), low
power consumption, and high pixel bandwidth (on the order of kHz) resulting in
reduced motion blur. Hence, event cameras have a large potential for robotics
and computer vision in challenging scenarios for traditional cameras, such as
low-latency, high speed, and high dynamic range. However, novel methods are
required to process the unconventional output of these sensors in order to
unlock their potential. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the
emerging field of event-based vision, with a focus on the applications and the
algorithms developed to unlock the outstanding properties of event cameras. We
present event cameras from their working principle, the actual sensors that are
available and the tasks that they have been used for, from low-level vision
(feature detection and tracking, optic flow, etc.) to high-level vision
(reconstruction, segmentation, recognition). We also discuss the techniques
developed to process events, including learning-based techniques, as well as
specialized processors for these novel sensors, such as spiking neural
networks. Additionally, we highlight the challenges that remain to be tackled
and the opportunities that lie ahead in the search for a more efficient,
bio-inspired way for machines to perceive and interact with the world
Predictive Duty Cycle Adaptation for Wireless Camera Networks
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) typically employ dynamic duty cycle schemes to efficiently handle different patterns of communication traffic in the network. However, existing duty cycling approaches are not suitable for event-driven WSN, in particular, camera-based networks designed to track humans and objects. A characteristic feature of such networks is the spatially-correlated bursty traffic that occurs in the vicinity of potentially highly mobile objects. In this paper, we propose a concept of indirect sensing in the MAC layer of a wireless camera network and an active duty cycle adaptation scheme based on Kalman filter that continuously predicts and updates the location of the object that triggers bursty communication traffic in the network. This prediction allows the camera nodes to alter their communication protocol parameters prior to the actual increase in the communication traffic. Our simulations demonstrate that our active adaptation strategy outperforms TMAC not only in terms of energy efficiency and communication latency, but also in terms of TIBPEA, a QoS metric for event-driven WSN
Total Variation Regularized Tensor RPCA for Background Subtraction from Compressive Measurements
Background subtraction has been a fundamental and widely studied task in
video analysis, with a wide range of applications in video surveillance,
teleconferencing and 3D modeling. Recently, motivated by compressive imaging,
background subtraction from compressive measurements (BSCM) is becoming an
active research task in video surveillance. In this paper, we propose a novel
tensor-based robust PCA (TenRPCA) approach for BSCM by decomposing video frames
into backgrounds with spatial-temporal correlations and foregrounds with
spatio-temporal continuity in a tensor framework. In this approach, we use 3D
total variation (TV) to enhance the spatio-temporal continuity of foregrounds,
and Tucker decomposition to model the spatio-temporal correlations of video
background. Based on this idea, we design a basic tensor RPCA model over the
video frames, dubbed as the holistic TenRPCA model (H-TenRPCA). To characterize
the correlations among the groups of similar 3D patches of video background, we
further design a patch-group-based tensor RPCA model (PG-TenRPCA) by joint
tensor Tucker decompositions of 3D patch groups for modeling the video
background. Efficient algorithms using alternating direction method of
multipliers (ADMM) are developed to solve the proposed models. Extensive
experiments on simulated and real-world videos demonstrate the superiority of
the proposed approaches over the existing state-of-the-art approaches.Comment: To appear in IEEE TI
Correlation plenoptic imaging
Plenoptic imaging is a promising optical modality that simultaneously
captures the location and the propagation direction of light in order to enable
three-dimensional imaging in a single shot. However, in classical imaging
systems, the maximum spatial and angular resolutions are fundamentally linked;
thereby, the maximum achievable depth of field is inversely proportional to the
spatial resolution. We propose to take advantage of the second-order
correlation properties of light to overcome this fundamental limitation. In
this paper, we demonstrate that the momentum/position correlation of chaotic
light leads to the enhanced refocusing power of correlation plenoptic imaging
with respect to standard plenoptic imaging.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Fireground location understanding by semantic linking of visual objects and building information models
This paper presents an outline for improved localization and situational awareness in fire emergency situations based on semantic technology and computer vision techniques. The novelty of our methodology lies in the semantic linking of video object recognition results from visual and thermal cameras with Building Information Models (BIM). The current limitations and possibilities of certain building information streams in the context of fire safety or fire incident management are addressed in this paper. Furthermore, our data management tools match higher-level semantic metadata descriptors of BIM and deep-learning based visual object recognition and classification networks. Based on these matches, estimations can be generated of camera, objects and event positions in the BIM model, transforming it from a static source of information into a rich, dynamic data provider. Previous work has already investigated the possibilities to link BIM and low-cost point sensors for fireground understanding, but these approaches did not take into account the benefits of video analysis and recent developments in semantics and feature learning research. Finally, the strengths of the proposed approach compared to the state-of-the-art is its (semi -)automatic workflow, generic and modular setup and multi-modal strategy, which allows to automatically create situational awareness, to improve localization and to facilitate the overall fire understanding
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in environmental biology: A Review
Acquiring information about the environment is a key step during each study in the field of environmental biology at different levels, from an individual species to community and biome. However, obtaining information about the environment is frequently difficult because of, for example, the phenological timing, spatial distribution of a species or limited accessibility of a particular area for the field survey. Moreover, remote sensing technology, which enables the observation of the Earth’s surface and is currently very common in environmental research, has many limitations such as insufficient spatial, spectral and temporal resolution and a high cost of data acquisition. Since the 1990s, researchers have been exploring the potential of different types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for monitoring Earth’s surface. The present study reviews recent scientific literature dealing with the use of UAV in environmental biology. Amongst numerous papers, short communications and conference abstracts, we selected 110 original studies of how UAVs can be used in environmental biology and which organisms can be studied in this manner. Most of these studies concerned the use of UAV to measure the vegetation parameters such as crown height, volume, number of individuals (14 studies) and quantification of the spatio-temporal dynamics of vegetation changes (12 studies). UAVs were also frequently applied to count birds and mammals, especially those living in the water. Generally, the analytical part of the present study was divided into following sections: (1) detecting, assessing and predicting threats on vegetation, (2) measuring the biophysical parameters of vegetation, (3) quantifying the dynamics of changes in plants and habitats and (4) population and behaviour studies of animals. At the end, we also synthesised all the information showing, amongst others, the advances in environmental biology because of UAV application. Considering that 33% of studies found and included in this review were published in 2017 and 2018, it is expected that the number and variety of applications of UAVs in environmental biology will increase in the future
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