Selective Intersection Flow: A Lightweight Optical Flow Algorithm for Micro Drones

In this study, selective intersection flow (SIF), a lightweight optical flow algorithm, was used to enhance efficiency and accuracy by filtering out non-contributive pixels. SIF, derived from the differential category of algorithms, is used to compute optical flow by analyzing intersections of equations from selected pixels rather than solving for all pixels. It replaces warping with a minimal computational procedure for initial flow estimate and employs a sliding window for optimized single-core performance. SIF runs 1.7–1.8 times faster and achieves 1.2–1.4 higher accuracy than the single iteration of the Lucas–Kanade method, showing promise for real-time micro drone navigation.