An evolutionary particle filter with the immune genetic algorithm for intelligent video target tracking

Particle filter algorithm is widely used for target tracking using video sequences, which is of great importance for intelligent surveillance applications. However, there is still much room for improvement, e.g. the so-called "sample impoverishment". It is brought by re-sampling which aims to avoid particle degradation, and thus becomes the inherent shortcoming of the particle filter. In order to solve the problem of sample impoverishment, increase the number of meaningful particles and ensure the diversity of the particle set, an evolutionary particle filter with the immune genetic algorithm (IGA) for target tracking is proposed by adding IGA in front of the re-sampling process to increase particle diversity. Particles are regarded as the antibodies of the immune system, and the state of target being tracked is regarded as the external invading antigen. With the crossover and mutation process, the immune system produces a large number of new antibodies (particles), and thus the new particles can better approximate the true state by exploiting new areas. Regulatory mechanisms of antibodies, such as promotion and suppression, ensure the diversity of the particle set. In the proposed algorithm, the particle set optimized by IGA can better express the true state of the target, and the number of meaningful particles can be increased significantly. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed particle filter are verified by target tracking experiments. Simulation results show that the proposed particle filter is better than the standard one in particle diversity and efficiency. The proposed algorithm can easily be extended to multiple objects tracking problems with occlusions. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.