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Determination of horizontal motion through optical flow computations

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Abstract

For intelligent/autonomous subsea vehicles, reliable short-range horizontal positioning is difficult to achieve, particularly over flat bottom topography. A potential solution proposed in this paper utilizes a passive optical sensing method to estimate, the vehicle displacement using the bottom surface texture. The suggested optical flow method does not require any feature correspondences in images and it is robust in allowing brightness changes between image frames. Fundamentally, this method is similar to correlation methods attempting to match images and compute the, motion disparity. However, in correlation methods, searching a neighbor region blindly for best match is lengthy. Main contributions of this paper come from the analysis showing that optical flow computation based on the general model cannot avoid errors except for null motion although the sign of optical flow keeps correct, and from the development of an iterative shifting method based on the error characteristics to accurately determine motions. Advantages of the proposed method are verified by real image experiments.

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This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Dr. Yu Chih-Ho currently is an Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Science & Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering of Tsinghua University and received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Hawaii, USA, in 1985 and 1990 respectively, all in Electrical Engineering. Dr. Yu was an Electrical Engineer with Huadian Electrical Machinery Factory from 1969 to 1979 and a Lecturer with Tianjin Texile Engineering College from 1979 to 1984. During the period from 1985 to 1991, Dr. Yu was employed by the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute as a Research Engineer and he was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Miami, Florida, from 1991 to 1993. Dr. Yu’s major research interests are in the fields of machine vision, virtual reality, and computer control systems. He has published more than 30 papers and two books in electrical engineering and computer science. Dr. Yu’s current research projects include algorithm development for motion recovery from optical image sequences, moving object/character recognition, and multi-functional sensing system for human-computer interface.

Dr. Frank M. Caimi currently is a Senior Electrical Engineer/Project Manager with Harbor Branch Oceanographic Instititution (HBOI) in Port Fierce, FL, USA. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1970, 1971, and 1976, respectively, all in Electrical Engineering. Dr. Caimi has conducted electro-optical research and development for over 15 years both as a consultant to government and industry, and as an employee of Carnegie Mellon University, Florida Institute of Technology, and HBOI. His research interests are in the areas of ocean optics, undersea imaging, nonlinear wave phenomena, bio-acoustic signal processing, and fiber-optic sensors. Dr. Caimi has many publications in electro-optic technology and holds patents fro evanescent-wave-coupled fiberoptic sensors, optical processing methods suited for the reduction and interpretation of multidimensional data, and for several optical systems used in measurement and control. He is also an editor of the SPIE Milestone book entitled “Underwater Optics” and is developing a current volume entitled “Underwater Imaging”.

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Yu, C.H., Caimi, F.M. Determination of horizontal motion through optical flow computations. J. of Comput. Sci. & Technol. 12, 133–144 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02951332

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02951332

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