<title>Analysis of the optical flow model applied to the motion estimation of sea ice from ERS-1 SAR image sequences</title>

Abstract

The optical flow models have been widely used in computer vision and recently also applied to motion estimation of sea ice with SAR satellite image sequences. However, the optical flow models, which are commonly based on the assumptions that the image brightness is stationary and velocity field or optical flow is constant within a small neighborhood, are sensitive to conditions usually encountered in real imagery. It is of interest and important to analyze the error sources and adaptability of optical flow models to real imagery. From similar assumptions, different optical flow methods can be derived. In particular, the optical flow model based on the second order partial derivatives of image brightness is emphasized because of its immunity to the aperture problem. The attention in the paper is paid to the analysis of this optical flow model. Based on error analysis, this paper discusses the adaptability of the optical flow model and the estimated accuracy of the velocity field in motion estimation of sea ice from ERS-1 SAR image sequences. Some experimental results of motion estimation from ERS-1 SAR images of sea ice in the Arctic area are presented in the paper, and some conclusions are finally drawn.© (1996) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.