Title: Bio-inspired visual attention in agile sensing for target detection

Authors: Jing Liu, Yang Xiao, Qi Hao, Kaveh Ghaboosi

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, The University of Alabama, 101 Houser Hall, Box 870290, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0290, USA. ' Department of Computer Science, The University of Alabama, 101 Houser Hall, Box 870290, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0290, USA. ' Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, 317 Houser Hall, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0286, USA. ' Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland

Abstract: In the context of surveillance, visual attention is referred to as an ability to rapidly locate the most salient or relevant target in biological or artificial vision systems. To support the basic research leading to determination of the principles on which humans and animals accomplish agile sensing, a survey of bio-inspired visual attention in target detection is presented in this paper. We first discuss some relevant fundamental concepts and techniques. Then several up-to-date algorithms and implementations are introduced in either bottom-up or top-down mechanisms. This paper also gives a tutorial for the existing researches and provides future challenges.

Keywords: bio-inspired computing; visual attention; UAV; target detection; sensor networks; agile sensing; surveillance; vision; unmanned aerial vehicles.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2009.024680

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2009 Vol.5 No.2, pp.98 - 111

Published online: 15 Apr 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article