Visual behaviors for real-time control of a binocular active vision system

An active vision system has to enable the implementation of reactive visual processes and of elementary visual behaviors in real time. Therefore the control architecture is extremely important. This paper discusses a number of issues related to the implementation of a real-time control architecture, and describes an architecture being used with camera heads. Even though in most applications a fully calibrated system is not required, a methodology for calibrating the camera head is also described, taking advantage of its degrees of freedom. Several visual processes are implemented, computing relevant measures for the control process. At higher levels the architecture is modelled as a state transition system. Finally, the paper shows how this architecture can be used to implement a pursuit behavior using optical flow. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.