A system (100) and method for object detection with sudden illumination changes provides a system (100) including a camera model unit (180) for computing a difference map between a first input image and a second input image, an illumination model unit (170) in signal communication with the camera model unit for comparing the sign of the difference between two pixels in a first input image against the sign of the difference between two pixels in a second input image, and a CPU (102) in signal communication with the camera model unit and the illumination model unit for detecting a changed object in accordance with said comparison when said sign of the difference is changed; and a corresponding method including providing a first image having a number of pixels, receiving a second image subsequent to the first image, calculating a difference map between the first and second images, selecting a pair of pixel locations from the first or second images in accordance with the difference map, statistically modeling a camera noise level for the first and second images, computing the likelihood of order inconsistency between a pair of pixel values at the selected locations in the first image and a pair of pixel values at the selected locations in the second image in accordance with the camera noise level; and detecting a changed object in accordance with the computed likelihood. <IMAGE>
Object detection for sudden illumination changes using order consistency