DESEO: an active vision system for detection, tracking and recognition

[EN]In this paper, a basic conceptual architecture aimed at the design of Computer Vision System is qualitatively described. The proposed architecture addresses the design of vision systems in a modular fashion using modules with three distinct units or components: a processing network or diagnostics unit, a control unit and a communications unit. The control of the system at the modules level is designed based on a Discrete Events Model. This basic methodology has been used to design a realtime active vision system for detection, tracking and recognition of people. It is made up of three functional modules aimed at the detection, tracking, recognition of moving individuals plus a supervision module.

Real-time tracking system using C80 DSPs and a binocular robotic head

[EN]An active vision system to perform tracking of moving objects in real time is described. The main goal is to obtain a system integrating off-the-self components. These components includes a stereoscopic robotic-head, as active perception hardware; a DSP based board SDB C80, as massive data processor and image acquisition board; and finally, a Pentium PC running Windows NT that interconnects and manages the whole system. Real-time is achieved taking advantage of the special architecture of DSP. An evaluation of the performance is included.

A C80 DSP-based active vision system for real-time tracking

[EN]Active Vision Systems can be considered as dynamical systems which close the loop around artificial visual perception, controlling camera parameters, motion and also controlling processing to simplify, accelerate and do more robust visual perception. Research and Development in Active Vision Systems [Aloi87], [Bajc88] is a main area of interest in Computer Vision, mainly by its potential application in different scenarios where real-time performance is needed such as robot navigation, surveillance, visual inspection, among many others. Several systems have been developed during last years using robotic-heads for this purpose...

Satellite tracking derived insights into migration and foraging strategies of male loggerhead turtles in the eastern Atlantic

[EN] In recent years, information about the movements and timing of migration by male sea turtles has begun to be unraveled. Here, we present the first satellite tracking of male loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the eastern Atlantic. Satellite linked transmitters were attached to five adult males, captured in the near shore waters off Boavista, Republic of Cape Verde. This archipelago hosts the single most important breeding site of loggerhead turtles in the eastern Atlantic.

Wearing Eye Tracking Technology During Batting Practice: Assessing the Experiences of Professional Baseball Athletes

Utilizing wearable technology in sport allows for the collection of motor behavior data during task engagement. This data can be assessed in real-time or retrospectively. Although enriching the scope of performance data, the consequences of wearable technology on the athlete-user, specifically the cognitive effects, has not been fully investigated, hence the purpose of this study. This qualitative study examines the cognitions of 57 professional baseball players who wore eye tracking technology whilst engaged in batting practice. Their verbal self-reports were framed by temporal context: before-during-after task. Three themes emerged during the pre-task segment: social appearance anxiety, claimed self-handicapping, and curiosity. During the task of batting, verbal behavior contained motivational and instructional overt self-talk while claimed self-handicapping was sustained. The final, post-performance segment was marked by the re-emergence of curiosity from the pre-task period as well as self-evaluation/appraisal. Given the participants were professional athletes, their performance has greater career implications than amateur competitors. Nonetheless, the verbal behavior elicited while wearing eye tracking technology indicates an awareness of the equipment by the user. This study found cognitive effects from wearable technology; more research is required to under-stand the scope and nature of those effects on cognitive and motor behaviors.

Nuclei of Nearby Active Galaxies: NIR and Sub-mm Views and Finalizing the LINC-NIRVANA Fringe and Flexure Tracking System: Flexure and Temperature Behavior

The work presented in my thesis addresses the two cornerstones of modern astronomy: Observation and Instrumentation. Part I deals with the observation of two nearby active galaxies, the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1433 and the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 1566, both at a distance of $\sim10$ Mpc, which are part of the Nuclei of Galaxies (NUGA) sample. It is well established that every galaxy harbors a super massive black hole (SMBH) at its center. Furthermore, there seems to be a fundamental correlation between the stellar bulge and SMBH masses. Simulations show that massive feedback, e.g., powerful outflows, in Quasi Stellar Objects (QSOs) has an impact on the mutual growth of bulge and SMBH. Nearby galaxies follow this relation but accrete mass at much lower rates. This gives rise to the following questions: Which mechanisms allow feeding of nearby Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)? Is this feeding triggered by events, e.g., star formation, nuclear spirals, outflows, on $\sim500$ pc scales around the AGN? Does feedback on these scales play a role in quenching the feeding process? Does it have an effect on the star formation close to the nucleus? To answer these questions I have carried out observations with the Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observation in the Near Infrared (SINFONI) at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) situated on Cerro Paranal in Chile. I have reduced and analyzed the recorded data, which contain spatial and spectral information in the H-band ($1.45 \mic-1.85 \mic$) and K-band ($1.95 \mic-2.45 \mic$) on the central $10\arcsec\times10\arcsec$ of the observed galaxies. Additionally, Atacama Large Millimeter/Sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) data at $350$ GHz ($\sim0.87$ mm) as well as optical high resolution Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images are used for the analysis. For NGC 1433 I deduce from comparison of the distributions of gas, dust, and intensity of highly ionized emission lines that the galaxy center lies $\sim70$ pc north-northwest of the prior estimate. A velocity gradient is observed at the new center, which I interpret as a bipolar outflow, a circum nuclear disk, or a combination of both. At least one dust and gas arm leads from a $r\sim200$ pc ring towards the nucleus and might feed the SMBH. Two bright warm H$_2$ gas spots are detected that indicate hidden star formation or a spiral arm-arm interaction. From the stellar velocity dispersion (SVD) I estimate a SMBH mass of $\sim1.74\times10^7$ \msol. For NGC 1566 I observe a nuclear gas disk of $\sim150$ pc in radius with a spiral structure. I estimate the total mass of this disk to be $\sim5.4\times10^7$ \msol. What mechanisms excite the gas in the disk is not clear. Neither can the existence of outflows be proven nor is star formation detected over the whole disk. On one side of the spiral structure I detect a star forming region with an estimated star formation rate of $\sim2.6\times10^{-3}$ \msol\ yr$^{-1}$. From broad Br$\gamma$ emission and SVD I estimate a mean SMBH mass of $\sim5.3\times10^6$ \msol\ with an Eddington ratio of $\sim2\times10^{-3}$. Part II deals with the final tests of the Fringe and Flexure Tracker (FFTS) for LBT INterferometric Camera and the NIR/Visible Adaptive iNterferometer for Astronomy (LINC-NIRVANA) at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona, USA, which I conducted. The FFTS is the subsystem that combines the two separate beams of the LBT and enables near-infrared interferometry with a significantly large field of view. The FFTS has a cryogenic system and an ambient temperature system which are separated by the baffle system. I redesigned this baffle to guarantee the functionality of the system after the final tests in the Cologne cryostat. The redesign did not affect any scientific performance of LINC-NIRVANA. I show in the final cooldown tests that the baffle fulfills the temperature requirement and stays $<110$ K whereas the moving stages in the ambient system stay $>273$ K, which was not given for the old baffle design. Additionally, I test the tilting flexure of the whole FFTS and show that accurate positioning of the detector and the tracking during observation can be guaranteed.

A Mobile High Sensitivity On-field Organophosphorous Compounds Detecting System for IoT Based Food Safety Tracking

Food safety has always been a social issue that draws great public attention. With the rapid development of wireless communication technologies and intelligent devices, more and more Internet of Things (IoT) systems are applied in the food safety tracking field. However, connection between things and information system is usually established by pre-storing information of things into RFID Tag, which is inapplicable for on-field food safety detection. Therefore, considering pesticide residue is one of the severe threaten to food safety, a new portable, high-sensitivity, low-power, on-field organophosphorus (OP) compounds detection system is proposed in this thesis to realize the on-field food safety detection. The system is designed based on optical detection method by using a customized photo-detection sensor. A Micro Controller Unit (MCU) and a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) module are used to quantize and transmit detection result. An Android Application (APP) is also developed for the system to processing and display detection result as well as control the detection process. Besides, a quartzose sample container and black system box are also designed and made for the system demonstration. Several optimizations are made in wireless communication, circuit layout, Android APP and industrial design to realize the mobility, low power and intelligence.

Vision-based tracking for sports performance analysis

With the world of professional sports shifting towards employing better sport analytics, the demand for vision-based performance analysis is growing increasingly in recent years. In addition, the nature of many sports does not allow the use of any kind of sensors or other wearable markers attached to players for monitoring their performances during competitions. This provides a potential application of systematic observations such as tracking information of the players to help coaches to develop their visual skills and perceptual awareness needed to make decisions about team strategy or training plans. My PhD project is part of a bigger ongoing project between sport scientists and computer scientists involving also industry partners and sports organisations. The overall idea is to investigate the contribution technology can make to the analysis of sports performance on the example of team sports such as rugby, football or hockey. A particular focus is on vision-based tracking, so that information about the location and dynamics of the players can be gained without any additional sensors on the players. To start with, prior approaches on visual tracking are extensively reviewed and analysed. In this thesis, methods to deal with the difficulties in visual tracking to handle the target appearance changes caused by intrinsic (e.g. pose variation) and extrinsic factors, such as occlusion, are proposed. This analysis highlights the importance of the proposed visual tracking algorithms, which reflect these challenges and suggest robust and accurate frameworks to estimate the target state in a complex tracking scenario such as a sports scene, thereby facilitating the tracking process. Next, a framework for continuously tracking multiple targets is proposed. Compared to single target tracking, multi-target tracking such as tracking the players on a sports field, poses additional difficulties, namely data association, which needs to be addressed. Here, the aim is to locate all targets of interest, inferring their trajectories and deciding which observation corresponds to which target trajectory is. In this thesis, an efficient framework is proposed to handle this particular problem, especially in sport scenes, where the players of the same team tend to look similar and exhibit complex interactions and unpredictable movements resulting in matching ambiguity between the players. The presented approach is also evaluated on different sports datasets and shows promising results. Finally, information from the proposed tracking system is utilised as the basic input for further higher level performance analysis such as tactics and team formations, which can help coaches to design a better training plan. Due to the continuous nature of many team sports (e.g. soccer, hockey), it is not straightforward to infer the high-level team behaviours, such as players’ interaction. The proposed framework relies on two distinct levels of performance analysis: low-level performance analysis, such as identifying players positions on the play field, as well as a high-level analysis, where the aim is to estimate the density of player locations or detecting their possible interaction group. The related experiments show the proposed approach can effectively explore this high-level information, which has many potential applications.