Motion estimator and motion estimating method

A motion estimator and a method of estimating motion are provided. The motion estimator comprises a candidate vector calculating unit for determining a plurality of candidate vectors for each block of a frame to be interpolated, on the basis of a current frame and a previous frame, a final motion deciding unit for selecting a candidate vector among the plurality of candidate vectors, according to a desired criteria, and for outputting the selected candidate vector as a final motion vector of a corresponding block and a global vector modeling unit for performing regression analysis based on final motion vectors to model a global vector calculating formula, and for providing the global vector calculating formula to the candidate vector calculating unit, wherein the candidate vector calculating unit calculates a global vector for each block of a next frame to be interpolated according to the modeled global vector calculating formula, and provides the global vector as one of the plurality of candidate vectors to the candidate vector deciding unit. Thus, exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide a motion estimator and a motion estimating method which are capable of obtaining a correct global vector while simplifying the configuration of the hardware.