Visual behaviours for binocular tracking

This paper presents a binocular tracking system based on the cooperation of visual behaviours. Biologically motivated behaviours, vergence and pursuit, are integrated as parallel and complementary processes in the tracking system. Their low internal coupling simplifies not only system design and control but also the acquisition of perceptual information. The use of a space variant image representation and low-level visual cues as feedback signals in a closed loop control architecture, allow real-time and reliable performance for each behaviour, despite the low precision of the algorithms and modelling errors. The overall system is implemented in a stereo head running at real-time (25 Hz), without any specific processing hardware. Results are presented for objects of different shapes and motions, illustrating that tracking can be robustly achieved by the cooperation of purposively designed behaviours, tuned to specific subgoals. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.