# Elastic Tracker: A Spatio-temporal Trajectory Planner Flexible Aerial Tracking

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.07111 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07111/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 15 Sep 2021.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [VLA-AN: An Efficient and Onboard Vision-Language-Action Framework for Aerial Navigation in Complex Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15258/) (2025)
- [NavDreamer: Video Models as Zero-Shot 3D Navigators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.09765/) (2026)
- [Active Human Pose Estimation via an Autonomous UAV Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.01811/) (2024)
- [Banshee: Target Switch Attacks on Gimbal-Stabilized Visual Tracking Systems via Acoustic Injection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.09930/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper proposes Elastic Tracker, a flexible trajectory planning framework that can deal with challenging tracking tasks with guaranteed safety and visibility. Firstly, an object detection and intension-free motion prediction method is designed. Then an occlusion-aware path finding method is proposed to provide a proper topology. A smart safe flight corridor generation strategy is designed with the guiding path. An analytical occlusion cost is evaluated. Finally, an effective trajectory optimization approach enables to generate a spatio-temporal optimal trajectory within the resultant flight corridor. Particular formulations are designed to guarantee both safety and visibility, with all the above requirements optimized jointly. The experimental results show that our method works more robustly but with less computation than the existing methods, even in some challenging tracking tasks.