Visual 3D Model-based Tracking toward Autonomous Live Sports Broadcasting using a VTOL Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in GPS-Impaired Environments
Inkyu Sa, Ho Seok Ahn · International Journal of Computer Applications · 2015
This paper presents a novel approach for autonomous live sports broadcasting using visual 3D model-based tracking and a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) such as a quadcopter or hexacopter in GPS-impaired environments.To achieve this level of autonomy, position estimation is essential and is a highly challenging problem using a monocular camera due to the scale ambiguity.In this paper, we track a tennis court, that is standard in dimension, using a moving edge-based tracker, and recover the scale with the prior knowledge of the fixed playing field.Experimental results are demonstrated in 3 different environments including static scenes, real broadcast video, and indoor flying.We also evaluate the proposed approach with the ground truth provided by a motion capture system and achieve a position estimation with less than 0.02 m standard deviation in the error.