Hybrid video using motion estimation

One of the major problems in low-bandwidth telerobotics applications is determining what visual data is sufficient to allow the operator to successfully perform a task. When the available bandwidth is extremely low, we must severely restrict the data being transmitted. For very-low-bandwidth applications, displaying certain types of features, such as edges in indoor navigation applications, allows for successful completion of the operator's task. As the available bandwidth increases, the operator can be presented with more information than just the edge features. Using simple overlay techniques to overlay a low-frame-rate video stream on a high-frame-rate edge feature stream provides the operator with more information about the environment. Registering the video data with the moving edge data poses a significant problem. In this paper, we propose to use simple motion estimation techniques based on the edge image stream to estimate the motion of the edge images and use this data to register the slower frame-rate video stream to the edge feature stream. Using these simple estimation techniques allows us to perform the video stream registration quickly as the edge feature data is being presented to the operator.