Skip to main content
Log in

A robust system for real-time pedestrian detection and tracking

  • Published:
Journal of Central South University Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A real-time pedestrian detection and tracking system using a single video camera was developed to monitor pedestrians. This system contained six modules: video flow capture, pre-processing, movement detection, shadow removal, tracking, and object classification. The Gaussian mixture model was utilized to extract the moving object from an image sequence segmented by the mean-shift technique in the pre-processing module. Shadow removal was used to alleviate the negative impact of the shadow to the detected objects. A model-free method was adopted to identify pedestrians. The maximum and minimum integration methods were developed to integrate multiple cues into the mean-shift algorithm and the initial tracking iteration with the competent integrated probability distribution map for object tracking. A simple but effective algorithm was proposed to handle full occlusion cases. The system was tested using real traffic videos from different sites. The results of the test confirm that the system is reliable and has an overall accuracy of over 85%.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. HUGHES R, HUANG H, ZEGGEER C, CYNECKI M. Automated pedestrian detection used in conjunction with standard pedestrian push buttons at signalized intersections [J]. Transportation Research Record, 2000, 1705: 32–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. COTTRELL W D, PAL D. Evaluation of pedestrian data needs and collection efforts [J]. Transportation Research Record, 2003, 1828: 12–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. COIFMAN B, BEYMER D, MCLAUCHLAN P, MALIK J. A real-time computer vision system for vehicle tracking and traffic surveillance [J]. Transportation Research: Part C, 1998, 6(4): 71–288.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Image sensing systems inc. Applications of autoscope [EB/OL]. [2011-07-06]. http://autoscope.com/applications/.

  5. ZHANG X, FORSHAW M R B. A parallel algorithm to extract information about the motion of road traffic using image analysis [J]. Transportation Research: Part C, 1997, 5(2): 141–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. LIU X, XU X, DAI B. Vision-based long-distance lane perception and front vehicle location for full autonomous vehicles on highway roads [J]. Journal of Central South University, 2012, 19(5): 1454–1465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. KILAMBI P, RIBNICK E, JOSHI A J, MASOUD O, PAPANIKOLOPOULOS N. Estimating pedestrian counts in groups [J]. Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 2008, 110(1): 43–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. LI J, SHAO C F, XU W T, LI J. A real-time system for tracking and classification of pedestrian and bicycles [J]. Transportation Research Record, 2010, 2198: 83–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. MALINOVSKIY Y, ZHENG J Y, WANG Y H. Simple and model-free algorithm for real-time pedestrian detection and tracking [C]// The 86th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Washington, D.C.: TRB, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Li Q, SHAO C F, YUE H. Real-time foreground-background segmentation based on improved codebook model [C]// Image and Signal Processing (CISP). Yantai, China: IEEE Press, 2010, 1: 269–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. CHRISTODOULOU L, KASPARIS T, MARQUES O. Advanced statistical and adaptive threshold techniques for moving object detection and segmentation [C]// Digital Signal Processing (DSP). Corfu: IEEE Press, 2011: 1–6.

    Google Scholar 

  12. CHEN Y, CHEN C, HUANG C, HUNG Y. Efficient hierarchical method for background subtraction [J]. Pattern Recognition, 2007(40): 2706–2715.

    Google Scholar 

  13. PARUCHURI J K, SATHIYAMOORTHY E P, CHEUNG S S, CHEN C H. Spatially adaptive illumination modeling for background subtraction [C]// IEEE Computer Vision workshops. Kentucky, USA: IEEE Press, 2011: 1745–1752.

    Google Scholar 

  14. ZAHARESCU A, JAMIESON M. Multi-scale multi-feature codebook-based background subtraction [C]// IEEE Computer Vision Workshops, ON, Canada: IEEE Press, 2011: 1753–1760

    Google Scholar 

  15. KIM K, THANARAT H C, HARWOOD D, DAVIS L. Real-time foreground-background segmentation using codebook model [J]. Real-Time Imaging, 2005, 11(3): 172–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. STAUFFER C, GRIMSON W E L. Adaptive background mixture models for real-time tracking [C]// Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. Fort Collins, Colorado: IEEE Press, 1999: 246–252.

    Google Scholar 

  17. LI Z D, WANG W H, WANG Y, CHENG F, WANG Y. Visual tracking by proto-objects [J]. Pattern Recognition, 2013, 46(8): 2187–2201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. PAPADOURAKIS V, ARGYROS A. Multiple objects tracking in the presence of long-term occlusions [J]. Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 2010, 114(7): 835–846.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. FU Z X, HAN Y. Centroid weighted Kalman filter for visual object tracking [J]. Measurement, 2012, 45(4): 650–655.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. MEUTER M, IURGEL U, PARK S B, KUMMERT A. The unscented Kalman filter for pedestrian tracking from a moving host [C]// IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium. Eindhoven, Holland: IEEE Press, 2008: 37–42.

    Google Scholar 

  21. RATSCH M, BLUMER C, VETTER T, TESCHKE G. Efficient object tracking by condentional and cascaded image sensing [J]. Computer Standards and Interfaces, 2012, 34(6): 549–557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. HU Z T, PAN Q, YANG F, CHENG Y M. An improved particle filtering algorithm based on observation inversion optimal sampling [J]. Journal of Central South University of Technology, 2009, 16(5): 815–820.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. HOTTA K. Adaptive weighting of local classifiers by particle filters for robust tracking [J]. Pattern Recognition, 2009, 42(5): 619–628.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. YAO A B, LIN X G, WANG G J, YU S. A compact association of particle filtering and kernel based object tracking [J]. Pattern Recognition, 2012, 45(7): 2584–2597.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. WANG Z W, YANG X K, YI X, YU S Y. CamShift guided particle filter for visual tracking [J]. Pattern Recognition Letters, 2009, 30(4): 407–413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. LIU H, YU Z, ZHA H B, ZOU Y X, ZHANG L. Robust human tracking based on multi-cue integration and mean-shift [J]. Pattern Recognition Letters, 2009, 30(9): 827–837.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. COLLINS R T. Mean-shift blob tracking through scale space [C]// IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. Pittsburgh, USA: IEEE Press, 2003, 2: 234–240.

    Google Scholar 

  28. ZHANG Z X, HUANG K Q, WANG Y H, LI M. View independent object classification by exploring scene consistency information for traffic scene surveillance [J]. Neurocomputing, 2013, 99(1): 250–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. OWENS J, HUNTER A, FLETCHER E. A fast model-free morphology-based object tracking algorithm [C]// British Machine Vision Conference. Cardiff, UK, 2002: 767–776.

    Google Scholar 

  30. COMANICIU D, MEER P. Mean-shift a robust approach toward feature space analysis [J]. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 2002, 24: 603–619.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. CUCCHIARA R, GRANA C, PICCARDI M, PRATI A, SIROTTI S. Improving shadow suppression in moving object detection with HSV color information [C]// IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference. Oakland, CA: IEEE Press, 2001: 334–339.

    Google Scholar 

  32. COMANICIU D, RAMESH V, MEER P. Real-time tracking of non-rigid objects using mean shift [C]// IEEE Computer Vision Pattern Recognition. Hilton Head Island, SC: IEEE Press, 2000, 2: 142–149.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chun-fu Shao  (邵春福).

Additional information

Foundation item: Project(50778015) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Project(2012CB725403) supported by the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Li, Q., Shao, Cf. & Zhao, Y. A robust system for real-time pedestrian detection and tracking. J. Cent. South Univ. 21, 1643–1653 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-014-2106-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-014-2106-1

Key words

Navigation