A novel particle tracking algorithm using polar coordinate system similarity

A new algorithm using polar coordinate system similarity (PCSS) for tracking particle in particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) is proposed. The essence of the algorithm is to consider simultaneously the changes of the distance and angle of surrounding particles relative to the object particle. Monte Carlo simulations of a solid body rotational flow and a parallel shearing flow are used to investigate flows measurable by PCSS and the influences of experimental parameters on the implementation of the new algorithm. The results indicate that the PCSS algorithm can be applied to flows subjected to strong rotation and is not sensitive to experimental parameters in comparison with the conventional binary image cross-correlation (BICC) algorithm. Finally, PCSS is applied to images of a real experiment.