Modeling Method and Control Strategy for Hose-Drogue Aerial Refueling System

Conventional method for hose-drogue model of aerial refueling system is known to be complex due to the flexible body of hose.And as reported,drogues are unstable in atmospheric turbulence,which greatly decreases docking success rates.This paper proposes a dynamic model for a hose-drogue aerial refueling system based on Kane equation and rigid multi-body dynamics,and analyzes its performance.Furthermore,the nonlinear dynamic model is linearized at the equilibrium point and simplified from full order to 2 nd order.Based on the simplified 2 nd order model,active control strategies,including proportion integral derivative(PID)and liner quadratic regulator(LQR)control laws,are designed to inhibit the pendulum movement of drogue due to,atmospheric turbulences.Numerical simulation results show the significant correctness of the proposed dynamic model by steady-state drag and balance position of drogue when the tanker flights under different conditions.Moreover,the steady state position error varies within 1 cm,thanks to either controller,when the drogue suffers from moderate-level atmospheric turbulences.Further,the PID controller exhibits better control effect and higher control precision than LQR controller.

Dynamic modeling of a hose-drogue aerial refueling system and integral sliding mode backstepping control for the hose whipping phenomenon

Dynamic modeling of a hose-drogue aerial refueling system（HDARS） and an integral sliding mode backstepping controller design for the hose whipping phenomenon（HWP） during probe-drogue coupling are studied. Firstly, a dynamic model of the variable-length hose-drogue assembly is built for the sake of exploiting suppression methods for the whipping phenomenon.Based on the lumped parameter method, the hose is modeled by a series of variable-length links connected with frictionless joints. A set of iterative equations of the hose＇s three-dimensional motion is derived subject to hose reeling in/out, tanker motion, gravity, and aerodynamic loads accounting for the effects of steady wind, atmospheric turbulence, and tanker wake. Secondly,relying on a permanent magnet synchronous motor and high-precision position sensors, a new active control strategy for the HWP on the basis of the relative position between the tanker and the receiver is proposed. Considering the strict-feedback configuration of the permanent magnet synchronous motor, a rotor position control law based on the backstepping method is designed to insure global stability. An integral of the rotor position error and an exponential sliding mode reaching law of the current errors are applied to enhance control accuracy and robustness. Finally,the simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed model and control laws.

Guidance and Control for UAV Aerial Refueling Docking Based on Dynamic Inversion with L_1 Adaptive Augmentation

The guidance and control for UAV aerial refueling docking based on dynamic inversion with L1 adaptive augmentation is studied.In order to improve the tracking performance of UAV aerial refueling docking,aguidance algorithm is developed to satisfy the tracking requirement of position and velocity,and it generates the UAV flight control loop commands.In flight control loop,based on the 6-DOF nonlinear model,the angular rate loop and the attitude loop are separated based on time-scale principle and the control law is designed using dynamic inversion.The throttle control is also derived from dynamic inversion method.Moreover,an L1 adaptive augmentation is developed to compensate for the undesirable effects of modeling uncertainty and disturbance.Nonlinear digital simulations are carried out.The results show that the guidance and control system has good tracking performance and robustness in achieving accurate aerial refueling docking.

LQR Integrated with Fuzzy Control for Aerial Refueling Autopilot

Linear Quadratic Regulator （LQR） is modem linear control that is suitable for multivariable state feedback and is known to yield good performance for linear systems or for nonlinear systems where the nonlinear aspects are presented. The fuzzy control is known to have the ability to deal with nonlinearities without having to use advanced mathematics. The LQR integrated fuzzy control （LQRIFC） simultaneously makes use of the good performance of LQR in the region close to switching curve, and the effectiveness of fuzzy control in region away from switching curve. A new analysis of the fuzzy system behavior presented helps to make possible precise integration of LQR features into fuzzy control. The LQRIFC is verified by simulation to suppress the uncertainty instability more effectively than the LQR besides minimizing the time of the mission proposed.

Progress in modeling and control of probe-and-drogue autonomous aerial refueling

By refueling aircraft while they are in flight,aerial refueling is an efficient technique to extend their endurance and range.Autonomous Aerial Refueling(AAR)is anticipated to be used to complete aerial refueling for unmanned aircraft.There are three aerial refueling methods:the Probe-and-Drogue Refueling(PDR)refueling method,the flying-boom refueling method,and the boom-drogue-adapter refueling method.The paper considers the PDR approach,the most challenging of the three,because the flexible hose-drogue assembly has fast dynamics and is susceptible to various kinds of winds,which makes the probe docking with the drogue difficult.PDR is divided into four phases,namely the rendezvous phase,joining phase,refueling phase,and reform phase,with the refueling phase being the most crucial.The controller design faces the greatest challenge during the docking control of the refueling phase since it calls for a high level of safety,precision,and efficiency.As a result,the modeling and control issues encountered during the refueling phase are typical and difficult.The fundamental idea of AAR is presented in the paper first,after which the characteristics and requirements of AAR are outlined.The progress in modeling and control techniques for the AAR’s refueling phase is then systematically reviewed.Finally,potential future work for high safety,precision,and efficiency requirements is examined and suggested.

Aerial refueling scheduling of multi-receiver and multi-tanker under spatial-temporal constraints for forest firefighting

Forest fires pose a significant threat to human life and property,so the utilization of unmanned aircraft systems provides new ways for forest firefighting.Given the constrained load capacities of these aircraft,aerial refueling becomes crucial to extend their operational time and range.In order to address the complexities of firefighting missions involving multi-receiver and multi-tanker deployed from various airports,first,a fuel consumption calculation model for aerial refueling scheduling is established based on the receiver path.Then,two distinct methods,including an integrated one and a decomposed one,are designed to address the challenges of establishing refueling airspace and allocating tasks for tankers.Both methods aim to optimize total fuel consumption of the receivers and tankers within the aerial refueling scheduling framework.The optimization problem is established as nonlinear optimization models along with restrictions.The integrated method seamlessly combines refueling rendezvous point scheduling and tanker task allocation into unified process.It has a complete solution space and excels in optimizing total fuel consumption.The decomposed method,through the separation of rendezvous point scheduling and task allocation,achieves a reduced computational complexity.However,this comes at the cost of sacrificing optimality by excluding specific feasible solutions.Finally,numerical simulations are carried out to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methods.These simulations yield insights crucial for the practical engineering application of both the integrated and decomposed methods in real-world scenarios.This comprehensive approach aims to enhance the efficiency of forest firefighting operations,mitigating the risks posed by forest fires to human life and property.

Drogue detection for autonomous aerial refueling via hybrid pigeon-inspired optimized color opponent and saliency aggregation

Drogue detection is one of the challenging tasks in autonomous aerial refueling due to the requirement for accuracy and rapidity.Saliency detection based on image intrinsic cues can achieve fast detection,but with poor accuracy.Recent studies reveal that optimization-based methods provide accurate and quick solutions for saliency detection.This paper presents a hybrid pigeon-inspired optimization method,the optimized color opponent,that aims to adjust the weight of color opponent channels to detect the drogue region.It can optimize the weights in the selected aerial refueling scene offline,and the results are applied for drogue detection in the scene.A novel algorithm aggregated by the optimized color opponent and robust background detection is presented to provide better precision and robustness.Experimental results on benchmark datasets and aerial refueling images show that the proposed method successfully extracts the saliency region or drogue and exhibits superior performance against the other saliency detection methods with intrinsic cues.The algorithm designed in this paper is competent for the drogue detection task of autonomous aerial refueling.

Numerical Analysis of Refueling Drogue Oscillation During Refueling Docking

Refueling docking at different velocities is simulated by using computational fluid dynamics(CFD)method.The Osher scheme and S-A turbulence model are used to solve the compressible Navier-Stokes equations,and the Delaunay mapping dynamic grid method is also employed.All the numerical results show that the velocity of refueling docking is very important for aerial refueling.When the velocity is lower than 3m/s,the refueling drogue will move upward with obvious cycle staggering,while moving upward with slight cycle staggering at the speed of3m/s.The results can be referenced by aerial refueling design.

国外空中加油受油机操纵品质试飞技术综述

针对飞机执行软式空中加油任务时飞行品质试飞及评价方法缺失的问题,搜集国外文献,结合实际空中加油试飞,分解空中加油任务得到加油不同阶段飞行品质关注重点。针对性提出加油任务相关的操纵品质试飞及评价方法,改进加油模态飞行控制律,改善飞行品质、尾流场操纵品质检查、空中加油任务闭环操纵品质评价等,对我国空中加油飞行品质试飞及评价具有较大参考价值。

软式空中加油系统鞭甩现象多体动力学分析

软管-锥套式空中加油系统的柔性结构经常发生不同程度的软管鞭甩现象,极大影响空中加油任务的安全性。基于柔性多体动力学,建立了空中加油系统动力学模型,其中,利用基于任意拉格朗日-欧拉描述方式和绝对结点坐标法的索/梁模型描述管线的大变形、大范围运动以及软管收放,并对空中加油系统受到的气动力进行建模,建立的模型能够反映加油机和受油机运动、软管和锥套的变形与气动力的耦合影响。基于建立的空中加油系统动力学模型,复现飞行状态下的软管鞭甩现象,获得了鞭甩现象的形成机理。研究表明,对接冲击下,软管平衡状态改变所形成的剪切波向后传播与反射是鞭甩现象产生的主要原因。通过多工况计算结果,分析了软管刚度、对接速度、Ma数各因素对鞭甩现象引起的软管剪切力、纵波与剪切波传播速度的影响规律,并分别分析了软管收放控制和加缓冲的受油插头两种措施对鞭甩现象振动抑制的有效性。

一种空中自主加油扰动建模与自适应控制方法

针对加/受油机近距对接阶段设计气动扰动建模与对接控制方法。首先建立了大气紊流、受油机绕流和加油机尾流等干扰的等效模型,用以描述空中加油阶段气流扰动对锥套的推离规律以及对受油机气流角与气动力矩的影响。然后面向近距对接控制任务,设计了基于超螺旋滑模观测器的自适应干扰抑制控制器,在基线动态逆控制律的基础上引入外环二阶滑模干扰观测器用以补偿姿态扰动,内环引入角速率观测器并构造自适应项以抑制长时干扰。最后,通过综合视景仿真系统验证了基于滑模观测器的自适应干扰抑制控制器能够实现气流扰动下受油探管对锥套中心的精准跟踪。

考虑气动干扰下的可控锥套建模和软管锥套系统仿真

开发了一个具有4个控制面的主动控制软管锥套的动态模型,以减轻头波效应和紊流在对接阶段对空气动力干扰。使用数值模拟计算了软管锥套的空气动力特性,并使用线性和多项式函数进行简化。利用空气动力模型设计了一个线性二次调节器(Linear quadratic regulator,LQR)控制器。使用MATLAB/Simulink构建了一个软管锥套模型,并验证了主动控制软管锥套在减少干扰效应方面的效力。还使用静态模型研究了控制面偏转角对软管悬挂曲线的影响。数值模拟结果表明,主动控制软管锥套降低了头波效应和紊流的干扰影响,提高了软管锥套系统的稳定性和空中加油的成功率。

Unmanned autonomous air-to-air refueling intelligent docking technology

Unmanned autonomous Air-to-Air Refueling(AAR)capability is the key guarantee to support the distant-field,high-intensity and durable operations of the penetration counterair combat system.In the future,the long-range unmanned reconnaissance and attack platform can reach the maximum flight range requirement through AAR.At present,large transport aircraft platforms in China are still equipped with probe-and-drogue systems,and the refueling mode is gradually changing from manned to unmanned autonomous operation.The docking process is the riskiest and most important part,and there are strict safety,precision,and efficiency requirements for refueling operation,especially during close-distance docking and formation maintenance phases.In this paper,five issues that need to be solved to achieve autonomous AAR docking are summarized.On this basis,five key technology development needs are proposed to solve these engineering issues.Finally,some prospects are given.

自主空中加油能力需求及关键评价指标分析

从飞行试验角度而言,如何评价自主空中加受油能力,以及采用哪些关键指标进行评价是自主空中加受油试飞亟待解决的关键问题。从国内外空中加油相关标准要求出发,同时借鉴有人机空中加油的成功经验,分析了自主空中加油总体能力需求,提出了会合、编队、对接、加油及脱离等全过程关键评价指标,在数值仿真和硬件在回路两种环境下对评估方法进行了试验验证,结合试验结果,对影响自主空中加油对接成功的关键因素进行了分析并提出了评价指标建议,试验结果可为自主空中加受油流程设计、试飞验证等方面提供参考和借鉴。

N-fold Bernoulli probability based adaptive fast-tracking algorithm and its application to autonomous aerial refuelling

Recently,deep learning has been widely utilized for object tracking tasks.However,deep learning encounters limits in tasks such as Autonomous Aerial Refueling(AAR),where the target object can vary substantially in size,requiring high-precision real-time performance in embedded systems.This paper presents a novel embedded adaptiveness single-object tracking framework based on an improved YOLOv4 detection approach and an n-fold Bernoulli probability theorem.First,an Asymmetric Convolutional Network(ACNet)and dense blocks are combined with the YOLOv4 architecture to detect small objects with high precision when similar objects are in the background.The prior object information,such as its location in the previous frame and its speed,is utilized to adaptively track objects of various sizes.Moreover,based on the n-fold Bernoulli probability theorem,we develop a filter that uses statistical laws to reduce the false positive rate of object tracking.To evaluate the efficiency of our algorithm,a new AAR dataset is collected,and extensive AAR detection and tracking experiments are performed.The results demonstrate that our improved detection algorithm is better than the original YOLOv4 algorithm on small and similar object detection tasks;the object tracking algorithm is better than state-of-the-art object tracking algorithms on refueling drogue tracking tasks.

无人机自主空中加油会合编队控制方法

针对无人机自主空中加油过程中加油机、受油机会合编队问题,基于Lyapunov导航向量场(LGVF)和一致性理论设计了一种编队控制方法。首先,建立了无人机编队模型,包括通信拓扑模型和编队几何模型,并在此基础上定义了多无人机系统的协同变量;接着,设计了期望的加油轨迹,并基于Lyapunov导航向量场方法设计了加油机(编队参考点)的飞行控制律;然后,根据加油机的位置、速度信息,基于一致性理论设计了加、受油机会合编队控制方法,并分析了该方法的稳定性;最后,进行了数字仿真,表明了所提方法的有效性。

自主空中加油分布式仿真系统设计

针对无人机自主空中加油技术研究过程中对于实时的数字/半物理仿真的需求,基于ZeroMQ和C++/Qt设计开发了自主空中加油分布式仿真系统。首先,对分布式仿真系统的仿真通信网络进行设计;接着,设计了分布式仿真系统程序框架,并定义了管理节点和仿真节点两类节点;最后,基于ZeroMQ和C++/Qt对上述设计内容进行实现。该系统能够实现对于自主空中加油过程的实时仿真,并为半物理仿真留下了方便的接口。

Vision-based Estimation of Relative Pose in Autonomous Aerial Refueling

The lack of autonomous aerial refueling capabilities is one of the greatest limitations of unmanned aerial vehicles. This paper discusses the vision-based estimation of the relative pose of a tanker and unmanned aerial vehicle, which is a key issue in autonomous aerial refueling. The main task of this paper is to study the relative pose estimation for a tanker and unmanned aerial vehicle in the phase of commencing refueling and during refueling. The employed algorithm includes the initialization of the orientation parameters and an orthogonal iteration algorithm to estimate the optimal solution of rotation matrix and translation vector. In simulation experiments, because of the small variation in the rotation angle in aerial refueling, the method in which the initial rotation matrix is the identity matrix is found to be the most stable and accurate among methods. Finally, the paper discusses the effects of the number and configuration of feature points on the accuracy of the estimation results when using this method.

Modeling and simulation of bow wave effect in probe and drogue aerial refueling

In a probe and drogue aerial refueling system, the bow wave of the receiver aircraft will produce a strong aerodynamic effect on the drogue once the receiver follows the drogue at a close distance. It is a major difficulty of docking control in the probe and drogue refueling. This paper analyses the bow wave effect and presents a simple method to model it. Firstly, the inviscid flow around the receiver is modeled based on the stream function defined by basic stream singularities. Secondly, a correction function is developed to eliminate the error caused by the absence of air vis- cosity. Then, the aerodynamic coefficients are used to calculate the induced aerodynamic force on the drogue. The obtained model is in an analytical form that can be easily applied to the controller design and the real-time simulations. In the verification part, computational fluid dynamics （CFD） simulation tests are conducted to validate the obtained flow fields and aerodynamic forces. Finally, the modeling method is applied to an F-16 receiver aircraft in a previously developed autonomous aerial refueling simulation system. The simulations results are analyzed and compared with the NASA flight-test data, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.

无人机空中加油锥套识别与对接导引模拟实验设计与实现

针对基于视觉的无人机空中加油任务需求,设计了一套无人机空中加油锥套识别与对接导引模拟实验。采用基于YOLOv4-tiny的智能锥套检测算法,实现在环境变化情况下的锥套识别与定位;设计了一种基于视觉的对接导引律,通过调节无人机的飞行速度和角度实现对接导引。实验结果表明,YOLOv4-tiny检测锥套的准确率和速度满足自主对接的定位精度要求和实时性要求,在锥套静止和运动两种情况下,利用基于视觉的导引律可以实现无人机快速跟踪锥套,以完成自主加油过程。