AUTOMATIC TRACKING DEVICE AND AUTOMATIC TRACKING METHOD

摘要

An automatic tracking apparatus is provided, which is capable of solving a failure occurred in an automatic tracing operation in convection with a zooming operation, and capable of tracking an object in a stable manner, while a zooming-up operation, or a zooming-down operation is carried out in a high speed. The automatic tracking apparatus is equipped with : a first object detecting unit 52 for detecting an object from an image photographed by a camera and inputted; a first zooming control unit 53 for changing zooming magnification of the camera in such a case that a dimension of the detected object is smaller than a predetermined dimension on the image; a second object detecting unit 55 for detecting the object from an image again photographed by the camera after the zooming magnification has been changed; a template matching unit 56 for comparing the object detected by the second object detecting unit with the image photographed by the camera so as to specify a position of the object and to track the obj ect on the image; and a second zooming control unit 57 for controlling the zooming magnification of the camera in such a manner that a dimension of the object to be tracked becomes a predetermined dimension on an image which is photographed by the camera.