Real-time people localization and tracking through fixed stereo vision

Detecting, locating, and tracking people in a dynamic environment is important in many applications, ranging from security and environmental surveillance to assistance to people in domestic environments, to the analysis of human activities. To this end, several methods for tracking people have been developed using monocular cameras, stereo sensors, and radio frequency tags. In this paper we describe a real-time People Localization and Tracking (PLT) System, based on a calibrated fixed stereo vision sensor. The system analyzes three interconnected representations of the stereo data (the left intensity image, the disparity image, and the 3-D world locations of measured points) to dynamically update a model of the background; extract foreground objects, such as people and rearranged furniture; track their positions in the world. The system can detect and track people moving in an area approximately 3 × 8 meters in front of the sensor with high reliability and good precision. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.