Patent ID: 8174580

Claim:
An automatic-tracking camera apparatus comprising: an image pickup unit adapted to acquire an image in a cycle; an actuator adapted to change a position of said image pickup unit; a position detecting unit adapted to detect the position of said image pickup unit; a position instruction value generation unit adapted to generate a position instruction value for instructing a target position of said image pickup unit at the next-after-next start timing of image acquisition by said image pickup unit, on the basis of the image acquired by said image pickup unit and the position of said image pickup unit detected by said position detecting unit, in synchronization with the cycle of image acquisition by said image pickup unit; a speed prediction unit adapted to predict a speed of a tracking target object at the next-after-next start timing of image acquisition by said image pickup unit; and a control unit adapted to control said actuator so that said image pickup unit reaches the position indicated by the position instruction value generated for the next-after-next start timing of image acquisition by said image pickup unit, at the next-after-next start timing, and the speed of said image pickup unit at the next-after-next start timing of image acquisition by said image pickup unit corresponds to the speed predicted by said speed prediction unit for the next-after-next timing of image acquisition.