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A monocular visual measurement system for UAV probe-and-drogue autonomous aerial refueling

Long Xin (School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, China)
Delin Luo (School of Aerospace Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China)
Han Li (School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, China)

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics

ISSN: 1756-378X

Article publication date: 11 June 2018

136

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a monocular visual measurement system for autonomous aerial refueling (AAR) for unmanned aerial vehicle, which can process images from an infrared camera to estimate the pose of the drogue in the tanker with high accuracy and real-time performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Methods and techniques for marker detection, feature matching and pose estimation have been designed and implemented in the visual measurement system.

Findings

The simple blob detection (SBD) method is adopted, which outperforms the Laplacian of Gaussian method. And a novel noise-elimination algorithm is proposed for excluding the noise points. Besides, a novel feature matching algorithm based on perspective transformation is proposed. Comparative experimental results indicated the rapidity and effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Practical implications

The visual measurement system developed in this paper can be applied to estimate the pose of the drogue with a fast speed and high accuracy and it is a feasible measurement strategy which will considerably increase the autonomy and reliability for AAR.

Originality/value

The SBD method is used to detect the features and a novel noise-elimination algorithm is proposed. Besides, a novel feature matching algorithm based on perspective transformation is proposed which is robust and accurate.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research is partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 61673327 and Aeronautical Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 20160168001.

Citation

Xin, L., Luo, D. and Li, H. (2018), "A monocular visual measurement system for UAV probe-and-drogue autonomous aerial refueling", International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 166-180. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJICC-06-2017-0067

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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