SVPTO: Safe Visibility-Guided Perception-Aware Trajectory Optimization for Aerial Tracking

In this article, we propose a safe visibility-guided perception-aware trajectory optimization method for aerial tracking, which can handle occlusion and collision in complex environments simultaneously. Different from the existing methods, the key idea of the proposed method is to actively adjust the relative distance and angle between the quadrotor and the target to avoid occlusion and collision with obstacles. Specifically, a novel field of view-based metric is proposed to avoid the occlusion of the target from obstacles. On this basis, the complexity of the environment is also introduced to adjust the relative distance between the quadrotor and the target to further reduce the probability of occlusion. Then, a critical relative angle is proposed to enhance the obstacle perception in the quadrotor motion direction. In addition, a time optimization method is proposed to improve the smoothness of quadrotor flight. Finally, comparative simulation and real-world experiments are conducted to verify the superior performance, including both the visibility and safety of the proposed method.