Motion Field Estimation Using U-Disparity Map in Vehicle Environment

In this paper, we propose a novel motion field estimation algorithm for which a U-disparity map and forward-and-backward error removal are applied in a vehicular environment. Generally, a motion exists in an image obtained by a camera attached to a vehicle by vehicle movement; however, the obtained motion vector is inaccurate because of the surrounding environmental factors such as the illumination changes and vehicles shaking. It is, therefore, difficult to extract an accurate motion vector, especially on the road surface, due to the similarity of the adjacent-pixel values; therefore, the proposed algorithm first removes the road surface region in the obtained image by using a U-disparity map, and uses then the optical flow that represents the motion vector of the object in the remaining part of the image. The algorithm also uses a forward-backward error-removal technique to improve the motion-vector accuracy and a vehicle's movement is predicted through the application of the RANSAC (RANdom SAmple Consensus) to the previously obtained motion vectors, resulting in the generation of a motion field. Through experiment results, we show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is superior to that of an existing algorithm.