Despite camera drones becoming more and more intelligent, high-quality aerial tracking shots normally still require a large degree of human input. A research project at the MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is aiming to change that. The team has developed a drone that does not require any human control for recording tracking shots.
Users can specify a viewing angle as well as the position and size of the target’s face on the screen and the drone will remain locked onto its target while also avoiding any obstacles in its flight path. Tracking parameters can be changed in-flight and the drone will adjust its position accordingly. Users can also attach a weighting to parameters, so the drone can prioritize in situations when it's impossible to maintain all specified parameters.
The MIT drone and tracking system will be presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Singapore at the end of the month. You can see the MIT drone in action in the video below and find more information on the MIT website.
There are reliable tracking cam/mounts that follow a radio tag attached to the subject. Seems like a primary application of this approach might be following involuntary subjects. On the other hand - there is more to this than just following, such as the need to autonomously identify and avoid obstacles. So it could have many innocent uses.
If DJI they made them a bit larger, painted them matt black, and gave them a more useful battery life, they would be just like those nasty spy droids you see in Star Wars, probably around episodes 1-3. Add recognition for a particular face (already available) and it could seek out a face in a crowd, track its movements, then fly home. Cellular comms would also allow the drone to send the video home in real-time, or at least start an upload while it's flying home.
Many consumer / enthusiast drones are claimed to offer intelligent tracking and obstacle avoidance. The troubles are: 1) a tracked subject may resemble others in the field of view or be occluded by vegetation, other obstructions, or shadows; and 2) obstacles may be irregular (tree branches, winding roads), like a fuzzy labyrinth, without easy detours. It is difficult to resolve or uniquely identify a face using a wide-angle camera >100' in the air. The person will not always be looking at the drone, which may be confused by headgear, other heads, and so on.
The subjects in the sample MIT video are in a setting with few or no obstructions and wear distinctly marked helmets. It may illustrate a 50% solution to tracking. The other 50% entails, however, a steepening curve of difficulties, to say nothing of risks of "collateral damage," which have a long but unpardoning tail.
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