Fault Tolerant SAMI for Vision-Based Probe and Drogue Autonomous Aerial Refueling

This paper develops a fault tolerant Structured Adaptive Model Inversion controller integrated with a reliable relative position sensor for practical autonomous aerial refueling. The refueling scenario of an unmanned tanker aircraft refueling an unmanned receiver aircraft using the probe-and-drogue method is addressed. The structured adaptive model inversion controller does not depend on fault detection information, yet reconfigures and provides smooth trajectory tracking and probe docking in the presence of control effector failure. The controller also handles parameter uncertainty in the receiver aircraft model. In this paper the controller is integrated with a vision based relative position sensor which tracks the relative position of the drogue, and a reference trajectory generator. Feasibility and performance of the controller and integrated system is demonstrated with simulated docking maneuvers with a non-stationary drogue, in the presence of system uncertainties and control effector failures. Results presented in the paper demonstrate that the controller/sensor system can provide successful docking in the presence of system uncertainties for a specified class of control effector failures.

Fault Tolerant SAMI for Vision-Based Probe and Drogue Autonomous Aerial Refueling Conference Paper