Video Tracking for Animal Behavior Analysis

Abstract

A procedure for rats behavior analysis using image and video processing methods is proposed. The analyzed scene consists of a plastic box split into three chambers by two walls. Two cages are placed in box marginal areas. Each cage can be populated or not by a rat. A free rat explores all three environment components. The proposed method determines the parameters necessary for overall motion analysis: entries number in each area and visit time. The algorithm consists of two steps. First, the moving rats are tracked and their trajectories are stored. In the final step, trajectories offline analysis is performed.

Keywords

• video tracking
• trajectory analysis