Development of Modelling and Control Tools for Aerial Refueling for Uavs

Fravolini, Mario Luca; Ficola, A.; Napolitano, Marcello R.; Campa, Giampiero; Perhinschi, Mario G.

doi:10.2514/6.2003-5798

Cited by 29 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Studies involving the modelling of UAVs during aerial refuelling (Dogan et al, 2005;Ochi and Kominami, 2005;Pollini et al, 2003;Fravolini et al, 2003) have considered the aircraft centre of gravity (cog) position to be fixed. Linear models of receiver aircraft have been developed (Wang et al, 2008) in conjunction with a wake model.…”

Section: Jo Pedro Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR)-based multi input/multi output state feedback and integral control technique was considered for a tanker and receiver aircraft in an aerial refuelling manoeuvre (Dogan and Kim, 2007). Fravolini et al (2003) developed an LQR controller for the tanker and an H ∞ controller for the receiver. Pachter et al (1997) proposed a control system based on quantitative feedback theory for an air-to-air refuelling operation.…”

Section: Jo Pedro Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An air force having unmanned vehicles that can refuel in the air would have the advantage of a greatly extended endurance (weeks, months, and possibly even years) and the ability to immediately respond to a threat thousands of miles away. Without a man in the cockpit and with an aerial-refuelling capability, the endurance of the aircraft would only be limited by routine maintenance, allowing larger payloads, giving rise to new operational capabilities (Clark, 2000;Pardesi, 2005;Withrow, 2004;Fravolini et al, 2003;Thompson, 1998;Vendra et al, 2007;Ollero and Merino, 2004;Jin et al, 2006). Autonomous command and control have been identified as one of the core areas of technology that will ensure success in future Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)/Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) development (Withrow, 2004;Clark, 2000;Hansen et al, 2004;Wong and Bill, 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A nonlinear dynamic inversion-based neurocontroller for unmanned combat aerial vehicles during aerial refuelling

Pedro¹,

Panday²,

Dala³

2013

International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science

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The paper presents the development of modelling and control strategies for a six-degree-of-freedom, unmanned combat aerial vehicle with the inclusion of the centre of gravity position travel during the straight-leg part of an in-flight refuelling manoeuvre. The centre of gravity position travel is found to have a parabolic variation with an increasing mass of aircraft. A nonlinear dynamic inversion-based neurocontroller is designed for the process under investigation. Three radial basis function neural networks are exploited in order to invert the dynamics of the system, one for each control channel. Modal and time-domain analysis results show that the dynamic properties of the aircraft are strongly influenced during aerial refuelling. The effectiveness of the proposed control law is demonstrated through the use of simulation results for an F-16 aircraft. The longitudinal neurocontroller provided interesting results, and performed better than a baseline nonlinear dynamic inversion controller without neural network. On the other hand, the lateral-directional nonlinear dynamic inversion-based neurocontroller did not perform well as the longitudinal controller. It was concluded that the nonlinear dynamic inversion-based neurocontroller could be applied to control an unmanned combat aerial vehicle during aerial refuelling.

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Section: Jo Pedro Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Jo Pedro Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A nonlinear dynamic inversion-based neurocontroller for unmanned combat aerial vehicles during aerial refuelling

Pedro¹,

Panday²,

Dala³

2013

International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science

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“…In the case of aerial refueling, fuel transferred to the receiver aircraft brings in momentum and changes its inertia properties. Previous works [45,7,46,47,48,49,50,51,1,52] in aerial refueling either ignore the effect of mass transfer or treat it as disturbance causing parametric uncertainty [7]. In this work, the equations of motion for the receiver are derived considering the system of the receiver aircraft and the fuel before and after being transferred into the receiver.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Derivation of the Dynamics Equations of Receiver Aircraft in Aerial Refueling

Waishek

Dogan

Blake

2009

Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics

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“…While the effect of the leader's vortices on the follower in a formation flight is beneficial in reducing drag/fuel consumed, 1 the influence of a tanker's vortices on a receiver aircraft during aerial refueling 2,3 can be detrimental to the stability of the receiver aircraft. There has been some recent work [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] dealing with demonstration of the benefit of and issues with the control system development for aerial refueling. However, they do not study the effect of the tanker's trailing wake vortex on the receiver aircraft.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flight Control and Simulation for Aerial Refueling

Dogan¹,

Sato

2005

AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit

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This paper addresses the problem of controlling the receiver aircraft to achieve a successful aerial refueling. For the performance verification of the controller, a new set of nonlinear, 6-DOF, rigid body equations of motion for the receiver aircraft has been derived. The equations are developed using the reference frame as one that is attached to, translates and rotates with the tanker aircraft. Furthermore, the nonlinear equations contain the wind effect terms and their time derivatives to represent the aerodynamic coupling involved between the two aircraft. These wind terms are obtained using an averaging technique that computes the effective induced wind components and wind gradients in the receiver aircraft's body frame. Dynamics of the engine and the actuators are also included in the study. A linear position-tracking controller has been designed using a combination of integral control and optimal LQR design. The controller does not use the information of the tanker's vortex induced wind effects acting on the receiver aircraft as well as the mass change that occurs during refueling. The performance of the controller is evaluated in the high fidelity simulation environment employing the new sets of equations of motion. The simulation and control design are applied to a tailless fighter aircraft with innovative control effectors and thrust vectoring capability. Various allocation schemes for redundant control variables are analyzed in a realistic approach maneuver to the refueling contact position behind the tanker aircraft. In this paper, the performance evaluation is presented only during the initial phase of aerial refueling maneuver when the receiver aircraft maneuvers to reach the refueling contact position.

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Development of Modelling and Control Tools for Aerial Refueling for Uavs

Cited by 29 publications

References 5 publications

A nonlinear dynamic inversion-based neurocontroller for unmanned combat aerial vehicles during aerial refuelling

A nonlinear dynamic inversion-based neurocontroller for unmanned combat aerial vehicles during aerial refuelling

Derivation of the Dynamics Equations of Receiver Aircraft in Aerial Refueling

Flight Control and Simulation for Aerial Refueling

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