Vehicle-type motion estimation from multi-frame images

A model for vehicle-type motion, which assumes that the motion is a rotation around an axis through the vehicle center followed by a forward translation along the main axis of the vehicle, is proposed. When the rotation and the amplitude of translation are constant, this type of motion is shown to be equivalent to a constant camera-centered motion. This indicates that a constant motion in the conventional camera-centered model, which is commonly considered to be artificial, can in fact be a reasonable model in real life. It is shown that a constant vehicle-type motion can be interpreted as a constant screw motion. A linear algorithm for estimating constant vehicle-type motion is presented, and experiments using real scene images are included. As an extension, vehicle-type motion with constant rotation and constantly accelerated translation is discussed