Autonomous target tracking with quadrotors has wide applications in many scenarios, such as cinematographic follow-up shooting or suspect chasing. Target motion prediction is necessary when designing the tracking planner. However, the widely used constant velocity or constant rotation assumption can not fully capture the dynamics of the target. The tracker may fail when the target happens to move aggressively, such as sudden turn or deceleration. In this paper, we propose an intention-aware planner by additionally considering the intention of the target to enhance safety and robustness in aerial tracking applications. Firstly, a designated intention prediction method is proposed, which combines a user-defined potential assessment function and a state observation function. A reachable region is generated to specifically evaluate the turning intentions. Then we design an intention-driven hybrid A* method to predict the future possible positions for the target. Finally, an intention-aware optimization approach is designed to generate a spatial-temporal optimal trajectory, allowing the tracker to perceive unexpected situations from the target. Benchmark comparisons and real-world experiments are conducted to validate the performance of our method.

翻译：四旋翼自主目标跟踪在诸多场景中具有广泛应用，例如电影拍摄追踪或嫌疑目标追捕。设计跟踪规划器时需对目标运动进行预测，然而常用的匀速或恒转速假设难以完全捕捉目标动力学特性。当目标发生急转或急减速等剧烈运动时，跟踪器可能失效。本文通过额外考虑目标意图来提升空中跟踪应用的安全性和鲁棒性，提出一种意图感知规划器。首先设计了一种指定意图预测方法，该方法融合了用户定义的势能评估函数与状态观测函数，通过生成可达区域专门评估转向意图；其次设计了一种意图驱动的混合A*方法预测目标未来可能位置；最后构建了意图感知优化方法以生成时空最优轨迹，使跟踪器能感知目标的突发状况。通过基准对比实验与真实场景实验验证了所提方法的有效性。