Real-time 3D ball trajectory estimation for RoboCup middle size league using a single camera

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel architecture for real-time 3D ball trajectory estimation with a monocular camera in Middle Size League scenario. Our proposed system consists on detecting possible multiple ball candidates in the image, that are filtered in a multi-target data association layer. Validated ball candidates have their 3D trajectory estimated by Maximum Likelihood method (MLM) followed by a recursive refinement obtained with an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). Our approach was validated in real RoboCup scenario, evaluated recurring to ground truth information obtained by alternative methods allowing overall performance and quality assessment. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.