Object tracking by exploiting adaptive region-wise linear subspace representations and adaptive templates in an iterative particle filter

Aiming at tracking visual objects under harsh conditions, such as partial occlusions, illumination changes, and appearance variations, this paper proposes an iterative particle filter incorporated with an adaptive region-wise linear subspace (RWLS) representation of objects. The iterative particle filter employs a coarse-to-fine scheme to decisively generate particles that convey better hypothetic estimates of tracking parameters. As a result, a higher tracking accuracy can be achieved by aggregating the good hypothetic estimates from particles. Accompanying with the iterative particle filter, the RWLS representation is a special design to tackle the partial occlusion problem which often causes tracking failure. Moreover, the RWLS representation is made adaptive by exploiting an efficient incremental updating mechanism. This incremental updating mechanism can adapt the RWLS to gradual changes in object appearances and illumination conditions. Additionally, we also propose the adaptive mechanism to continuously adjust the object templates so that the varying appearances of tracked objects can be well handled. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves better performance than other related prior arts.

► A RWLS representation and a new particle filter are proposed for object tracking.
► The RWLS exploits an adaptive linear subspace and an adaptive template.
► The RWLS tackles partial occlusions and tough variations on object appearance.
► An incremental PCA is proposed to adapt the RWLS efficiently and dynamically.
► The proposed iterative particle filter effectively improves the tracking accuracy.