Temporal feature markers for event cameras

In this paper, a marker and its real-time tracking method are proposed. Different from existing technologies that recognize the markers by spatial event features, which lead to many practical problems, we discover the possibility of using temporal features. Strobe LEDs (light emitting diode) are used as markers to produce periodically flipping events, and a fast clustering-based algorithm is designed to track and recognize these markers simultaneously. Experiments demonstrate that our methods have superior speed and accuracy compared to state-of-the-arts. The markers can be stably tracked in many challenging situations, thus can be used in various visual tracking applications. The proposed method introduces a new marker and its corresponding recognition algorithm for event camera-based targets tracking, offering a reliable solution for various applications.