High-speed visual tracking based on artificial marker and hexagon pattern

Tracking a specific object based on visual information, refers to visual tracking. Here, the vision system should be able to distinguish the target object from other objects, especially in complex environment. Obviously, the more complex environment and information required, the more time needed especially for the one with depth and pose extraction. Generally, the hardware delay and the required image processing cause significant problem. Thus, this paper considers high-speed camera utilization within 4ms sampling time. Nevertheless, the hardware should be followed by robust and efficient image processing. Unfortunately, neither edge detection nor geometry extraction is able to be done less than 4ms. Here, having a target object that is commonly certain (specific) object, the artificial marker is introduced. A dark-round marker within adaptive threshold is utilized, so that the system can work in natural environment. In addition, the hexagon pattern is introduced to distinguish the target object from others. This pattern is not only used to resolve object identity, but can also be used to extract the depth and the pose information with total time less than 2.5ms. On the other hand, most visual tracking researches use conditioned environment to attain short delay on vision system with simple image extraction. Finally, the visual tracking based on artificial marker and hexagon pattern is evaluated through 2DOF servo system. The system performance is shown by the experimental results.