OBJECT MOVEMENT ESTIMATOR USING ONE-DIMENSIONAL OPTICAL FLOW

An object movement estimator (400) predicts optical flow by estimating changes in sensed images using one-dimensional correlations. Sensed image portions are stored at a first instant of time and compared with sensed image portions at a second instant of time. An optimal flow is estimated by performing a one-dimensional correlation of the sensed image portions at the first and second instants of time, and a time-to-contact is estimated based on the predicted optical flow thus obtained.