Walking Posture Analysis of Pigs Based on Star Skeleton Model

摘要

In order to make better use of video image processing technology to monitor and analyze behaviors of animals, a new walking posture analysis method based on star skeleton is proposed. Firstly, a pig target is detected and its boundary is extracted from the images. Secondly, according to the target's boundary the center of mass is computed and the curve of distance between contour points and center of mass is draw. The extremums of the above curve are computed to obtain the key contour points from the curve. The stick model of pigs is built by connecting the key contour points with its center of mass. Finally, the gaits of pigs are recognized by analyzing cyclic motion of the key contour points in the stick model. More specifically, the foreleg walking frequency of pigs could be calculated using the spectrum analysis method. The experiments results indicate that this method has higher recognition accuracy for the walking gaits of pigs. The relative error of the results is only within 10%. Furthermore, compared with manual monitoring method, it is more objective and convenient. Thus, this algorithm provides a new solution for animal behavior analysis based on video surveillance and image processing.