Robust underwater object tracking using color and motion cues

Abstract

We present a novel approach to tracking objects underwater using color and motion cues. We use the "sea locus" technique and optical flow to track a yellow transect tape in underwater video. The technique is robust in that it uses adaptive color cues when there is sufficient color information and switches to motion cues when color is absent. The technique is successfully demonstrated in controlled environment (swimming pool) and in real environment (coral reef video transect).