Vision based controller for autonomous aerial refueling

Author

Kimmett, Jennifer ; Valasek, John ; Junkins, John L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Aerosp. Eng., Texas A&M Univ., College Station, TX, USA

Volume

2

fYear

2002

fDate

2002

Firstpage

1138

Abstract

Autonomous aerial refueling is an important capability for unmanned aerial vehicles. This paper develops a candidate autonomous probe-and-drogue aerial refueling controller for an existing vision based relative position sensor and navigation system. The feasibility of the combined sensor-navigator-controller is demonstrated by a simulated UAV docking maneuver to a moving drogue in light turbulence. Results indicate that the controller can provide precise aerial refueling with good disturbance rejection characteristics.

Keywords

Kalman filters; aircraft control; aircraft navigation; control system synthesis; discrete time systems; position control; remotely operated vehicles; state-space methods; autonomous aerial refueling; autonomous probe-and-drogue aerial refueling controller; combined sensor-navigator-controller; discrete linear time-invariant model; disturbance rejection characteristics; light turbulence; moving drogue; simulated UAV docking maneuver; state-space representations; unmanned aerial vehicles; variational Kalman filter; vision based controller; vision based navigation system; vision based relative position sensor; Aircraft navigation; Erbium; Error correction; Force control; Integral equations; Motion control; Sensor systems; Tracking; Trajectory; Unmanned aerial vehicles;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Control Applications, 2002. Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7386-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CCA.2002.1038765

Filename

1038765