Multi-object tracking VLSI architecture using image-scan based region growing and feature matching

This paper presents a real-time multi-object tracking architecture based on image segmentation and object matching and its FPGA/ASIC implementation. With image segmentation, we can detect all objects in the image no matter whether they are moving or not. Using image segmentation results of successive frames, we exploit object matching in a simple object feature space for tracking of objects. For both real-time processing and compact implementation, we developed a novel image-scan based region-growing segmentation architecture, which efficiently utilizes high access-bandwidth embedded memories. The structure of image-scan processing element array is at the same time exploited for object feature extraction. Using simple object features, object matching can be realized for finding the most similar object in the previous image frame. The proposed architecture is realized with modern FPGA hardware and is verified to enable real-time tracking of up to 230 objects for QVGA-size video picture at 20MHz clock frequency.