# A Topological Approach for Motion Track Discrimination

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.05705 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.05705/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 18 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Feb 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [SqueezeNet: AlexNet-level accuracy with 50x fewer parameters and <0.5MB model size](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.07360/) (2016)
- [Persistence Images: A Stable Vector Representation of Persistent Homology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1507.06217/) (2015)
- [A roadmap for the computation of persistent homology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.08903/) (2015)
- [Explaining How a Deep Neural Network Trained with End-to-End Learning Steers a Car](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.07911/) (2017)
- [Persistent Homology of Attractors For Action Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.05310/) (2016)
- [Topological descriptors for 3D surface analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1601.06057/) (2016)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [SkyEV: RGB-Event UAV detection and tracking dataset and baseline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.18747/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Detecting small targets at range is difficult because there is not enough spatial information present in an image sub-region containing the target to use correlation-based methods to differentiate it from dynamic confusers present in the scene. Moreover, this lack of spatial information also disqualifies the use of most state-of-the-art deep learning image-based classifiers. Here, we use characteristics of target tracks extracted from video sequences as data from which to derive distinguishing topological features that help robustly differentiate targets of interest from confusers. In particular, we calculate persistent homology from time-delayed embeddings of dynamic statistics calculated from motion tracks extracted from a wide field-of-view video stream. In short, we use topological methods to extract features related to target motion dynamics that are useful for classification and disambiguation and show that small targets can be detected at range with high probability.