OBJECT TRACKER FOR VISUALLY TRACKING OBJECT MOTION

A tracking start-and-stop determining unit of a tracking processing unit determines whether to start or stop tracking based on a predetermined condition. During tracking, a sampling unit 29 creates or eliminates particles using a probability density distribution estimated for the previous image frame. A first to nth model tracking units transit the particles according to motion models respectively assigned, and observe the likelihood of a candidate curve corresponding to each particle with respect to an edge image generated by an image processing unit. A tracking integration unit determines a motion model which causes the highest likelihood, and estimates a probability density distribution using an observation likelihood based on the motion model.