Comparison of Contour Based and Feature Based Tracking Methods for Control of Microbiorobots

Miniature robots should be precisely controlled because of a small workspace and size of their shapes. Small error of control could lead to failure of tasks such as an assembly. Tracking is one of the most important techniques because control of a small scale robot is hard to accomplish without object’s motion information. In this paper, we compare the feature based and the region based tracking methods with microbiorobot. Invariant features can be extracted using Scale Invariant Feature Transfrom (SIFT) algorithm because microbiorobot is a rigid body unlike a cell. We clearly showed that the feature based tracking method track exact positions of the objects than region based tracking method when objects are close contacted or overlapped. Also, the feature based tracking method allows tracking of objects even though partial object disappears or illumination is changed.Copyright © 2009 by ASME