A real-time velocity estimation using motion blur in air hockey

In this paper a real-time approach for the air hockey puck´s velocity estimation based on motion blur is presented. In the proposed approach first a low resolution image is used to detect the puck and then the Fourier transform is used on the full resolution image to extract the direction of the motion. This hierarchical approach provides faster processing speed. The roundness of the ball and the length of the blur are finally used in order to estimate the speed. The proposed approach is implemented on an actual air hockey table using two different cameras, one with 30 and the other one with 60 frames per second. The obtained results show promising performance on velocity estimation using off-the-shelf cameras.