Qualitative visual navigation using weighted correlation

Based on flat ground assumption, a correlation method is developed to estimate the orientation of a vehicle relative to its running environment. A weight function is introduced to account for figure variation caused by 3D dynamic scene and perspective effects caused by the camera system. The estimated parameters can be qualitatively used in visual navigation. Results indicate that robust estimation can be achieved in real time by using the powerful image processing system PIPE (Pipelined Image Processing Engine)