Rana Farah

A tracking algorithm suitable for embedded systems implementation

Particle filters have been widely used for video tracking due to their robustness. However, most particle filter algorithm implementations are computationally expensive which makes them ill-suited for real-time embedded systems. There have been some attempts to provide hardware implementations for the particle filter, but none of them tried to simplify the algorithm first in order to make it more efficient for the hardware implementation. In this paper, a new sampling algorithm inspired from the particle filter methodology is proposed. It includes a resampling scheme that uses a new method to assign the number of particles between filter iterations and a criterion to reduce the number of processed samples, both in order to reduce the computational burden. Our experiments demonstrate that the algorithm can be as accurate as the CONDENSATION algorithm, while reducing the computational load by a factor of 30%.

RAT: Robust animal tracking

Determining the motion pattern of laboratory animals is very important in order to monitor their reaction to various stimuli. In this paper, we propose a robust method to track animals, and consequently determine their motion pattern. The method is designed to work under uncontrolled normal laboratory conditions. It consists of two steps. The first step tracks the animal coarsely, using the combination of four features, while the second step refines the boundaries of the tracked area, in order to fit more precisely the boundaries of the animal. The method achieves an average tracking error smaller than 5% for our test videos.

Where is the rat? Tracking in low contrast thermographic images

This paper presents a method to track an animal in low-contrast thermographic images in order to obtain its body temperature. This work was done in the context of the study of atypical febrile seizures. To solve this tracking problem, we propose a method based on morphological operations on the area to track using regions resulting from consecutive frame differences. A Gaussian model is then used to classify tracked area pixels into animal and background pixels to further remove outliers. The temperature of the animal is taken as the mean of the tracked area. Experimental results show that we obtain, in general, temperature estimation within 1°C from ground-truth for videos as long as 16000 frames.

A method for efficient NoC test scheduling using deterministic routing

Network-on-Chip (NoC) is an on-chip communication methodology that has been proposed as an alternative to bus-based communication in order to cope with the increased complexity in embedded designs. This paper presents a method for NoCs test scheduling using simulated annealing. The method uses a deterministic routing algorithm that minimizes test time while avoiding blocking. The method is implemented and various benchmarks are attempted.

A Multiobjective Optimization Method for the SOC Test Time, TAM, and Power Optimization Using a Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm

System-On-Chip (SOCs) test minimization is an important problem that has been receiving considerable attention. The problem is tightly coupled with the number of TAM bits, power, and wrapper design. This paper presents a multiobjective optimization approach for the SOC test scheduling problem. The method uses a Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm that minimizes the overall test application time in addition to power, wrapper design and TAM assignment. We present various experimental results that demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.

A computationally efficient importance sampling tracking algorithm

This paper proposes a computationally efficient importance sampling algorithm applicable to computer vision tracking. The algorithm is based on the CONDENSATION algorithm, but it avoids expensive operations that are costly in real-time embedded systems. It also includes a method that reduces the number of particles during execution and a new resampling scheme. Our experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is as accurate as the CONDENSATION algorithm. Depending on the processed sequence, the acceleration with respect to CONDENSATION can reach 7

Retinal Vessel Segmentation from a Hyperspectral Camera Images

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Body temperature measurement of an animal by tracking in biomedical experiments

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