Modular hierarchical vision system of an autonomous personal companion

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a computer program for implementing a method of identification, the computer-readable medium comprising:

• program instructions for identifying an object in an image of a scene;
• program instructions for selecting a first generic classifier from a group of generic classifiers defining broad categories of objects using object data determined for the object, the first generic classifier selected as being representative of the object, each generic classifier forming part of a corresponding hierarchical tree of classifiers with the generic classifier as a parent node of the tree;
• and
• program instructions for walking a first tree of classifiers of the first generic classifier by matching classifiers at one or more levels in the first tree to the object data until reaching an end classifier at a deepest level to identify an object class for the object.

A computer system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• memory coupled to the processor and having stored therein instructions that, if executed by the computer system, cause the computer system to execute a method of identification comprising:
• identifying an object in an image of a scene;
• selecting a first generic classifier from a group of generic classifiers defining broad categories of objects using object data determined for the object, the first generic classifier selected as being representative of the object, each generic classifier forming part of a corresponding hierarchical tree of classifiers with the generic classifier as a parent node of the tree;
• and
• walking a first tree of classifiers of the first generic classifier by matching classifiers at one or more levels in the first tree to the object data until reaching an end classifier at a deepest level to identify an object class for the object.