A Space-Variant Sensor Structure for Complex Target Detection and Tracking

Visually tracking a real-world target with an image sensor is widely applicable in robotics and human-computer interaction but is a computationally intensive task. Smart image sensors can make use of integrated motion detection circuits for target tracking, but algorithms for tracking complex, real-world targets are usually not suited to smart sensor implementations. We propose a sensor structure for tracking targets that have complex spatial frequency patterns and varying velocities. In this structure only basic motion detection circuits are used, however the distance between sensing elements is varied in order to vary the filtering properties of the system to be sensitive to a broad range of spatial frequencies and velocities. Simulation results show that it is possible to be selectively sensitive to both the different spatial frequencies of a target and to its varying velocity