Towards on-line saccade planning for high-resolution image sensing

This paper considers the problem of designing an active observer to plan a sequence of decisions regarding what target to look at, through a foveal-sensing action. We propose a framework in which a pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) camera schedules saccades in order to acquire high resolution images (at least one) of as many moving targets as possible before they leave the scene. An intelligent choice of the order of sensing the targets can significantly reduce the total dead-time wasted by the active camera and, consequently, its cycle time. The grabbed images provide meaningful identification imagery of distant targets which are not recognizable in a wide angle view. We cast the whole problem as a particular kind of dynamic discrete optimization. In particular, we will show that the problem can be solved by modelling the attentional gaze control as a novel on-line dynamic vehicle routing problem (DVRP) with deadlines. Moreover we also show how multi-view geometry can be used for evaluating the cost of high resolution image sensing with a PTZ camera. Congestion analysis experiments are reported proving the effectiveness of the solution in acquiring high resolution images of a large number of moving targets in a wide area. The evaluation was conducted with a simulation using a dual camera system in a master-slave configuration. Camera performances are also empirically tested in order to validate how the manufacturer’s specification deviates from our model using an off-the-shelf PTZ camera.