Multi-camera realtime 3d tracking of multiple flying animals

Automated tracking of animal movement allows analyses that would not otherwise be possible by providing great quantities of data. The additional capability of tracking in realtime— with minimal latency—opens up the experimental possibility of manipulating sensory feedback, thus allowing detailed ex-plorations of the neural basis for control of behavior. Here we describe a new system capable of tracking the position and body orientation of animals such as flies and birds. The sys-tem operates with less than 40 msec latency and can track multiple animals simultaneously. To achieve these results, a multi target tracking algorithm was developed based on the Extended Kalman Filter and the Nearest Neighbor Standard Filter data association algorithm. In one implementation, an eleven camera system is capable of tracking three flies simul