Autonomous Execution of Cinematographic Shots with Multiple Drones
This addresses the challenge of coordinating multiple drones for filmmaking, but it is incremental as it builds on existing drone and planning technologies.
The paper tackles the problem of autonomous cinematography with multiple drones by introducing a system that allows media directors to design and execute missions with various shot types, showcasing it in field experiments like a real regatta event.
This paper presents a system for the execution of autonomous cinematography missions with a team of drones. The system allows media directors to design missions involving different types of shots with one or multiple cameras, running sequentially or concurrently. We introduce the complete architecture, which includes components for mission design, planning and execution. Then, we focus on the components related to autonomous mission execution. First, we propose a novel parametric description for shots, considering different types of camera motion and tracked targets; and we use it to implement a set of canonical shots. Second, for multi-drone shot execution, we propose distributed schedulers that activate different shot controllers on board the drones. Moreover, an event-based mechanism is used to synchronize shot execution among the drones and to account for inaccuracies during shot planning. Finally, we showcase the system with field experiments filming sport activities, including a real regatta event. We report on system integration and lessons learnt during our experimental campaigns.