Data-Driven Probability Hypothesis Density Filter for Visual Tracking

We apply the probability hypothesis density (PHD) filter to track a random number of pedestrians in image sequences. The PHD filter is implemented using particle filter. How to design importance functions of the particle PHD filter remains a challenge, especially when targets can appear, disappear, merge, or split at any time. To meet this challenge, we have modeled the targets into two categories: survival objects and spontaneous birth objects. Based on the model, we have derived the data-driven importance function for a particle PHD filter and applied to pedestrians tracking where people or groups appear, merge, split, and disappear in the field of view of a camera. The experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness of the particle PHD filter using the proposed importance function in tracking random number of pedestrians and deriving their locations.