# SFTrack: A Robust Scale and Motion Adaptive Algorithm for Tracking Small and Fast Moving Objects

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.20079 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20079/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 24 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [YOLOX: Exceeding YOLO Series in 2021](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.08430/) (2021)
- [Simple Online and Realtime Tracking with a Deep Association Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.07402/) (2017)
- [Simple Online and Realtime Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.00763/) (2016)
- [ByteTrack: Multi-Object Tracking by Associating Every Detection Box](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.06864/) (2021)
- [Performance Measures and a Data Set for Multi-Target, Multi-Camera Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.01775/) (2016)
- [MOT16: A Benchmark for Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.00831/) (2016)
- [TrackFormer: Multi-Object Tracking with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02702/) (2021)
- [FairMOT: On the Fairness of Detection and Re-Identification in Multiple Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.01888/) (2020)
- [Tracking Objects as Points](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.01177/) (2020)
- [Bag of Tricks and A Strong Baseline for Deep Person Re-identification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07071/) (2019)
- [Tracking without bells and whistles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.05625/) (2019)
- [MOTR: End-to-End Multiple-Object Tracking with Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.03247/) (2021)
- [Observation-Centric SORT: Rethinking SORT for Robust Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14360/) (2022)
- [BoT-SORT: Robust Associations Multi-Pedestrian Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14651/) (2022)
- [Towards Real-Time Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12605/) (2019)
- [CrowdHuman: A Benchmark for Detecting Human in a Crowd](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.00123/) (2018)
- [Detection and Tracking Meet Drones Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06303/) (2020)
- [The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Benchmark: Object Detection and Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00518/) (2018)
- [Real-time Multiple People Tracking with Deeply Learned Candidate Selection and Person Re-Identification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.04427/) (2018)
- [Deep Learning vs. Traditional Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.13796/) (2019)
- [Deeply-Learned Part-Aligned Representations for Person Re-Identification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.07256/) (2017)
- [GIAOTracker: A comprehensive framework for MCMOT with global information and optimizing strategies in VisDrone 2021](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.11983/) (2022)
- [FOLT: Fast Multiple Object Tracking from UAV-captured Videos Based on Optical Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07207/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Tracking the Unstable: Appearance-Guided Motion Modeling for Robust Multi-Object Tracking in UAV-Captured Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01730/) (2025)
- [SocialTrack: Multi-Object Tracking in Complex Urban Traffic Scenes Inspired by Social Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.12777/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper addresses the problem of multi-object tracking in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) footage. It plays a critical role in various UAV applications, including traffic monitoring systems and real-time suspect tracking by the police. However, this task is highly challenging due to the fast motion of UAVs, as well as the small size of target objects in the videos caused by the high-altitude and wide angle views of drones. In this study, we thus introduce a simple yet more effective method compared to previous work to overcome these challenges. Our approach involves a new tracking strategy, which initiates the tracking of target objects from low-confidence detections commonly encountered in UAV application scenarios. Additionally, we propose revisiting traditional appearance-based matching algorithms to improve the association of low-confidence detections. To evaluate the effectiveness of our method, we conducted benchmark evaluations on two UAV-specific datasets (VisDrone2019, UAVDT) and one general object tracking dataset (MOT17). The results demonstrate that our approach surpasses current state-of-the art methodologies, highlighting its robustness and adaptability in diverse tracking environments. Furthermore, we have improved the annotation of the UAVDT dataset by rectifying several errors and addressing omissions found in the original annotations. We will provide this refined version of the dataset to facilitate better benchmarking in the field.