SACCADE AND PURSUIT ON AN ACTIVE HEAD EYE PLATFORM

We describe the implementation of, and results from, a real-time activ e surveillance vision system which detects moving objects in an everyd ay environment, directs the gaze of a head/eye platform towards the ob jects and subsequently pursues them smoothly. Target detection and pur suit are performed purely on the basis of image motion, and can contin ue over extended periods. Two independent parallel processes derive (i ) coarse resolution motion over the entire image to direct saccadic sh ifts in attention over a wide field of view, and (ii) fine resolution motion in a small central region of the image used to perform smooth-p ursuit. A gaze controller which selects results from the two visual pr ocesses and controls the movement of the head platform is implemented as a finite state machine.