Airplane detection and tracking using wavelet features and SVM classifier

In this paper we explain a fully automatic system for airplane detection and tracking based on wavelet transform and Support Vector Machine (SVM). By using 50 airplane images in different situations, models are developed to recognize airplane in the first frame of a video sequence. To train a SVM classifier for classifying pixels belong to objects and background pixels, vectors of features are built. The learned model can be used to detect the airplane in the original video and in the novel images. For original video, the system can be considered as a generalized tracker and for novel images it can be interpreted as method for learning models for object recognition. After airplane detection in the first frame, the feature vectors of this frame are used to train the SVM classifier. For new video frame, SVM is applied to test the pixels and form a confidence map. The 4th level of Daubechies´s wavelet coefficients corresponding to input image are used as features. Conducting simulations, it is demonstrated that airplane detection and tracking based on wavelet transform and SVM classification result in acceptable and efficient performance. The experimental results agree with the theoretical results.