1000-fps real-time optical flow detection system

Real-time optical flow detection at 1000 fps was realized by implementing an improved optical flow detection algorithm as hardware logic on a high-speed vision platform. The improved gradient-based algorithm, which is based on the Lucas-Kanade algorithm, can select a pseudo variable frame rate adaptively according to the amplitude of optical flow to estimate the accurate optical flow for objects moving at high speeds and low speeds in the same scene. The high-speed vision platform on which the optical flow detection algorithm is implemented can be used to calculate optical flow at 1000 fps for images of 1024 x 1024 pixels; by considering real scenarios such as rapid human motion, the performance of our developed optical flow detection algorithm and system was verified.