Statistical approach to time-to-impact estimation suitable for real-time near-sensor implementation

We present a method to estimate the time-to-impact (TTI) from a sequence of images. The method is based on detecting and tracking local extremal points. Their endurance within and between pixels is measured, accumulated, and used to achieve the TTI. This method, which improves on an earlier proposal, is entirely different from the ordinary optical flow technique and allows for fast and low-complex processing. The method is inspired by insects, which have some TTI capability without the possibility to compute high-complex optical flow. The method is further suitable for near-sensor image processing architectures. (c) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.