Tracking multiple people using distributed vision systems

We describe a method for observing multiple targets in a wide-area spatial environment using a distributed vision system (DVS). The DVS is constructed of some ´watching stations´ that consist of a camera, an image processor and a computer network that connects each systems. The system´s goal is to track multiple people in a wide-area that cannot be watched by single visual sensor. Our approach is based on three algorithms; an algorithm for real-time human tracking, the task decision algorithms of individual watching stations, and the object-matching method used between stations. We also describe experimental results that show the validity of our approach