Name
Abstract | ||
|---|---|---|
Close formation flight can extend an unmanned aerial vehicle's UAV range and endurance by utilizing lift from a wingman's wake vortices and by autonomous midair refueling or recharging. The prohibitive challenge in each of these applications is the highly accurate and reliable relative positioning that is required to station-keep in the wingman's wake and to dock, amid external disturbances. Global navigation satellite systems are well-suited to reliable absolute positioning, but they fall short for accurate relative positioning. This work proposes a relative positioning solution for UAV rendezvous and close formation flight that has been verified in multiple flight tests. A nonlinear estimation framework uses precise air-to-air measurements to correct onboard sensor measurements and produce an accurate relative state estimate that is resilient to intermittent relative measurement outages and degrades gracefully during extended outages. A guidance strategy compensates for wingman turn dynamics, acts explicitly on the estimated relative state, and is applicable to both rendezvous and formation flight. Ground testing showed a relative position estimate accuracy that is 2% of the separation distance, with successful detection and correspondence at up to 36﾿m. Autonomous close formation flight tests verified the relative positioning solution over extended periods, as close as two wingspans, in winds that were 30%-40% of the cruise airspeed, and at altitudes as low as 15﾿m. Root-mean-square relative position errors were 1.2﾿m horizontally and 0.44﾿m vertically during flights at the closest separation. |
Year | DOI | Venue |
|---|---|---|
2016 | 10.1002/rob.21637 | J. Field Robotics |
Field | DocType | Volume |
Wake,Lift (force),Satellite,Nonlinear system,Ground testing,Control theory,Simulation,Rendezvous,Airspeed,Engineering,Cruise | Journal | 33 |
Issue | ISSN | Citations |
5 | 1556-4959 | 1 |
PageRank | References | Authors |
0.37 | 11 | 3 |
Name | Order | Citations | PageRank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daniel Briggs Wilson | 1 | 9 | 1.40 |
| Ali Haydar Göktogan | 2 | 10 | 2.58 |
| Salah Sukkarieh | 3 | 1142 | 141.84 |