Title
Survey on Block Matching Motion Estimation Algorithms and Architectures with New Results
Abstract
Block matching motion estimation is the heart of video coding systems. During the last two decades, hundreds of fast algorithms and VLSI architectures have been proposed. In this paper, we try to provide an extensive exploration of motion estimation with our new developments. The main concepts of fast algorithms can be classified into six categories: reduction in search positions, simplification of matching criterion, bitwidth reduction, predictive search, hierarchical search, and fast full search. Comparisons of various algorithms in terms of video quality and computational complexity are given as useful guidelines for software applications. As for hardware implementations, full search architectures derived from systolic mapping are first introduced. The systolic arrays can be divided into inter-type and intra-type with 1-D, 2-D, and tree structures. Hexagonal plots are presented for system designers to clearly evaluate the architectures in six aspects including gate count, required frequency, hard-ware utilization, memory bandwidth, memory bitwidth, and latency. Next, architectures supporting fast algorithms are also reviewed. Finally, we propose our algorithmic and architectural co-development. The main idea is quick checking of the entire search range with simplified matching criterion to globally eliminate impossible candidates, followed by finer selection among potential best matched candidates. The operations of the two stages are mapped to the same hardware for resource sharing. Simulation results show that our design is ten times more area-speed efficient than full search architectures while the video quality is competitively the same.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1007/s11265-006-4190-4
VLSI Signal Processing
Keywords
Field
DocType
block matching,motion estimation,global elimination algorithm,VLSI architecture
Gate count,Memory bandwidth,Computer science,Parallel computing,Theoretical computer science,Real-time computing,Software,Tree structure,Motion estimation,Video quality,Very-large-scale integration,Computational complexity theory
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
42
3
0922-5773
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
60
2.43
76
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Yu-Wen Huang11116114.02
Ching-Yeh Chen265349.43
Chen-Han Tsai318513.75
Chun-fu Shen411811.87
Liang-Gee Chen53637383.22