configureKalmanFilter

Create Kalman filter for object tracking

Syntax

kalmanFilter = configureKalmanFilter(MotionModel,InitialLocation,InitialEstimateError,MotionNoise,MeasurementNoise)

Description

kalmanFilter = configureKalmanFilter(MotionModel,InitialLocation,InitialEstimateError,MotionNoise,MeasurementNoise) returns a vision.KalmanFilter object configured to track a physical object. This object moves with constant velocity or constant acceleration in an M-dimensional Cartesian space. The function determines the number of dimensions, M, from the length of the InitialLocation vector.

This function provides a simple approach for configuring the vision.KalmanFilter object for tracking a physical object in a Cartesian coordinate system. The tracked object may move with either constant velocity or constant acceleration. The statistics are the same along all dimensions. If you need to configure a Kalman filter with different assumptions, use the vision.KalmanFilter object directly.

Examples

Track an Occluded Object

Detect and track a ball using Kalman filtering, foreground detection, and blob analysis.

Create System objects to read the video frames, detect foreground physical objects, and display results.

videoReader = VideoReader('singleball.mp4');
videoPlayer = vision.VideoPlayer('Position',[100,100,500,400]);
foregroundDetector = vision.ForegroundDetector('NumTrainingFrames',10,...
                'InitialVariance',0.05);
blobAnalyzer = vision.BlobAnalysis('AreaOutputPort',false,...
                'MinimumBlobArea',70);

Process each video frame to detect and track the ball. After reading the current video frame, the example searches for the ball by using background subtraction and blob analysis. When the ball is first detected, the example creates a Kalman filter. The Kalman filter determines the ball?s location, whether it is detected or not. If the ball is detected, the Kalman filter first predicts its state at the current video frame. The filter then uses the newly detected location to correct the state, producing a filtered location. If the ball is missing, the Kalman filter solely relies on its previous state to predict the ball's current location.

  kalmanFilter = []; isTrackInitialized = false;
   while hasFrame(videoReader)
     colorImage  = readFrame(videoReader);

     foregroundMask = step(foregroundDetector,im2gray(im2single(colorImage)));
     detectedLocation = step(blobAnalyzer,foregroundMask);
     isObjectDetected = size(detectedLocation, 1) > 0;

     if ~isTrackInitialized
       if isObjectDetected
         kalmanFilter = configureKalmanFilter('ConstantAcceleration',...
                  detectedLocation(1,:), [1 1 1]*1e5, [25, 10, 10], 25);
         isTrackInitialized = true;
       end
       label = ''; circle = zeros(0,3);
     else
       if isObjectDetected
         predict(kalmanFilter);
         trackedLocation = correct(kalmanFilter, detectedLocation(1,:));
         label = 'Corrected';
       else
         trackedLocation = predict(kalmanFilter);
         label = 'Predicted';
       end
       circle = [trackedLocation, 5];
     end

     colorImage = insertObjectAnnotation(colorImage,'circle',...
                circle,label,'AnnotationColor','red');
     step(videoPlayer,colorImage);
     pause(0.1);
   end

Release resources.

release(videoPlayer);

Input Arguments

MotionModel — Motion model

'ConstantVelocity' | 'ConstantAcceleration'

Motion model, specified as 'ConstantVelocity' or 'ConstantAcceleration'. The motion model you select applies to all dimensions. For example, for the 2-D Cartesian coordinate system. This mode applies to both X and Y directions.

Data Types: char

InitialLocation — Initial location of object

vector

Initial location of object, specified as a numeric vector. This argument also determines the number of dimensions for the coordinate system. For example, if you specify the initial location as a two-element vector, [x₀, y₀], then a 2-D coordinate system is assumed.

Data Types: double | single | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64

InitialEstimateError — Initial estimate uncertainty variance

2-element vector | 3-element vector

Initial estimate uncertainty variance, specified as a two- or three-element vector. The initial estimate error specifies the variance of the initial estimates of location, velocity, and acceleration of the tracked object. The function assumes a zero initial velocity and acceleration for the object, at the location you set with the InitialLocation property. You can set the InitialEstimateError to an approximated value when you have the ability to measure location, velocity, or acceleration:

(assumed values – actual values)2 + the variance of the values

In many visual object tracking applications, it is common to only have a measurement of the object location from an object detector. In this case, you can set the first element (LocationVariance) of InitialEstimationError to the same value as MeasurementNoise. The velocity and acceleration variance values should be set to large values to indicate that the initial state of these are unknown. For example, if you detect the 2-D location of an object with variance of 1 and use a constant velocity motion model, then you can set LocationVariance to 1 and the second element VelocityVariance to a high value such as 1e4.

The value of this property affects the Kalman filter for the first few detections. Later, the estimate error is determined by the noise and the input data. A larger value for the initial estimate error helps the Kalman filter to adapt to the detection results faster. However, a larger value also prevents the Kalman filter from removing noise from the first few detections.

Specify the initial estimate error as a two-element vector for constant velocity or a three-element vector for constant acceleration:

MotionModel	InitialEstimateError
ConstantVelocity	[LocationVariance, VelocityVariance]
ConstantAcceleration	[LocationVariance, VelocityVariance, AccelerationVariance]

Data Types: double | single

MotionNoise — Deviation of selected and actual model

2-element vector | 3-element vector

Deviation of selected and actual model, specified as a two- or three-element vector. The motion noise specifies the tolerance of the Kalman filter for the deviation from the chosen model. This tolerance compensates for the difference between the object's actual motion and that of the model you choose whether the difference is from random deviation or just a small change in the motion (e.g. direction or speed). Increasing this value may cause the Kalman filter to change its state to fit the detections. Such an increase may prevent the Kalman filter from removing enough noise from the detections. The values of this property stay constant and therefore may affect the long-term performance of the Kalman filter.

MotionModel	MotionNoise
ConstantVelocity	[LocationVariance, VelocityVariance]
ConstantAcceleration	[LocationVariance, VelocityVariance, AccelerationVariance]

Data Types: double | single

MeasurementNoise — Variance inaccuracy of detected location

scalar

Variance inaccuracy of detected location, specified as a scalar. It is directly related to the technique used to detect the physical objects. For instance, if the detected location error is approximately 5 pixels, then set the measurement noise to 5^2. Increasing the MeasurementNoise value enables the Kalman filter to remove more noise from the detections. However, it may also cause the Kalman filter to adhere too closely to the motion model you chose, putting less emphasis on the detections. The values of this property stay constant, and therefore may affect the long-term performance of the Kalman filter.

Data Types: double | single

Output Arguments

kalmanFilter — Configured Kalman filter tracking

object

Configured Kalman filter, returned as a vision.KalmanFilter object for tracking.

Algorithms

This function provides a simple approach for configuring the vision.KalmanFilter object for tracking. The Kalman filter implements a discrete time, linear State-Space System. The configureKalmanFilter function sets the vision.KalmanFilter object properties.

The InitialLocation property corresponds to the measurement vector used in the Kalman filter state-space model. This table relates the measurement vector, M, to the state-space model for the Kalman filter.
State transition model, A, and Measurement model, H
The state transition model, A, and the measurement model, H of the state-space model, are set to block diagonal matrices made from M identical submatrices As and Hs, respectively: A = blkdiag(As _1, As _2, ..., As _M) H = blkdiag(Hs _1, Hs _2, ..., Hs _M)
The submatrices As and Hs are described below:
MotionModel	As	Hs
'ConstantVelocity'	[1 1; 0 1]	[1 0]
'ConstantAcceleration'	[1 1 0.5; 0 1 1; 0 0 1]	[1 0 0]
The Initial State, x:
MotionModel	Initial state, x
'ConstantVelocity'	[InitialLocation(1), 0, ..., InitialLocation(M), 0]
'ConstantAcceleration'	[InitialLocation(1), 0, 0, ..., InitialLocation(M), 0, 0]
The initial state estimation error covariance matrix, P:
P = diag(repmat(InitialError, [1, M]))
The process noise covariance, Q:
Q = diag(repmat(MotionNoise, [1, M]))
The measurement noise covariance, R:
R = diag(repmat(MeasurementNoise, [1, M])).

Version History

Introduced in R2012b