Pan and tilt real-time target tracking

In recent years, we see an increase of interest for intelligent and efficient tracking systems in surveillance applications. Many of the proposed techniques are designed for static cameras environments. When the camera is moving, tracking moving objects becomes more difficult and many techniques fail to detect and track the desired targets. The problem becomes more complex when we want to track a specific object in real-time using a Pan and Tilt camera system (PTU). Tracking a target using a PTU in order to keep the target within the image is important in surveillance applications. When a target is detected, the possibility of automatically tracking it and keeping it within the image until action is taken is very important for security personnel working in sensitive areas. This work presents a real-time tracking system based on particle filters. The proposed system permits the detection and continuous tracking of a selected target using a Pan and Tilt camera platform. A novel simple and efficient approach for dealing with occlusions is presented. Also a new intelligent forget factor is introduced in order to take into account target shape variations and avoid learning non desired objects. Tests conducted in outdoor operational scenarios show the efficiency and robustness of the proposed approach.