In order to extract the moving video object accurately

a novel algorithm for automatic segmentation and tracking moving object is proposed in this paper.Firstly

a fourth-order statistic hypothesis testing in inter-frame difference is used to automatically separate the moving areas from the background in a general video sequence.Then the morphological filter is used to remove the noises and holes.Based on the intersection operation of the two moving areas which obtained from three consecutive frames

the covered/uncovered background may be detected and moving object model can be obtained.Secondly

after determining the initial contour of the moving object

an improved active contour which uses the gradient vector as the external force guides the initial contour moving to the video object contour.Lastly

the motion compensation is made to the video object contour to obtain the initial contour of the next frame and the improved active contour is used again to correct the video object contour of the next frame.Thus

video object tracking can be realized.Our method can not only obtain the accurate contour of the video object but also make the segmentation and tracking for multiple objects.