Combined Stereo Vision and Inertial Navigation for Automated Aerial Refueling

Abstract

This paper describes the design of an EKF to obtain the precise relative position of two aircraft in a refueling maneuver while operating in GPS denied environments. The EKF uses the INS already present in both aircraft as well as the stereo camera system organic to new tanker systems. The aircraft trajectories are generated according to authentic refueling profiles with flight dynamics software and executed in a 3D virtual environment to enable deterministic simulation of the stereo camera system and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the combined system in a refueling scenario. Results show the system can achieve sufficient accuracy utilizing only SMV and INS measurements, though the system is capable of incorporating GPS measurements when available for an additional increase in accuracy.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 23, 2017
Accession Number
AD1054655

Entities

People

  • Daniel T. Johnson

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Computational Science
  • Department Of Defense
  • Geodesy
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Inertial Measurement Units
  • Inertial Navigation
  • Inertial Navigation Systems
  • Kalman Filters
  • Navigation
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Refueling In Flight
  • Tanker Aircraft
  • United States Government
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • World Geodetic System

Readers

  • Adaptive Control and Estimation with Uncertainty in Dynamic Systems.
  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Technology.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Spacecraft Maneuvers