Bionic visual close-range navigation control system for the docking stage of probe-and-drogue autonomous aerial refueling

Abstract Bionic visual close-range navigation control system and method for the docking stage of probe-and-drogue autonomous aerial refueling (AAR) are developed in this paper. The reasonable bionic visual close-range navigation system is devised to obtain the accurate pose information of drogue which is connected to a flexible hose in the presence of multi-wind disturbances. Correspondingly, the biological eagle-eye-based color detection method is constructed on the basis of the eagle-eye color vision mechanism to detect the drogue region and markers. The different visual navigation methods based on marker matching and ellipse fitting are respectively applied for the two situations: the markers detected normally, and the drogue far away to receiver or the markers blocked partially. Moreover, due to the switch of different control targets and navigation methods (GPS or bionic visual navigation) for controllers in the docking stage, the different relative position precise controllers are designed to control the relative position between the tanker and receiver. The experimental results show that the bionic visual close-range navigation system and method effectively acquire the drogue's pose information in the entire visual docking stage and the designed controllers are suitable to the GPS and bionic visual navigation methods for changing and keeping the relative position between the tanker/receiver or probe/drogue.

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