Camera motion detection for mobile smart cameras using segmented edge-based optical flow

Determining camera motion is a challenging task in applications involving mobile smart cameras. With widespread use of cameras in mobile applications, analyzing motion-based information have become important. Optical flow has been a popular technique in determining camera motion. However, the use of traditional optical flow techniques can be computationally quite expensive and impractical for embedded smart cameras with limited processing power, The aim of this paper is to provide an effective and computationally efficient optical flow technique to determine the camera motion direction. This technique is based on the segmentation of edge features, and has been implemented on an actual embedded platform. We will show that the systematic segmentation of edge features not only reduces computation time drastically, but also provides sufficient details in determining basic camera motion patterns.