Predictive tracking across occlusions in the iCub robot

In humans the tracking of a visual moving target across occlusions is not made with continuous smooth pursuit. The tracking stops when the object is occluded and one or two saccades are made to the other side of the occluder to anticipate when and where the object reappears. This paper describes a methodology for the implementation of such a behavior in a robotic platform - the iCub. We use the RLS algorithm for the on-line estimation and prediction of the target trajectory and a vision based object tracker capable of detecting the occlusion and the reappearance of an object. This system demonstrates predictive ability for tracking across an occlusion with a biologically-plausible behavior.