Iterative learning control and initial value estimation for probe–drogue autonomous aerial refueling of UAVs

Abstract

In a probe–drogue aerial refueling system, the drogue is affected not only by wind disturbances but also by strong disturbances from the tanker vortex and receiver forebody bow wave. Along with the aerodynamic disturbances acting on the receiver aircraft, it is difficult for the probe to capture the moving drogue in the docking stage. This paper studies the model of the probe–drogue aerial refueling system under aerodynamic disturbances, and proposes docking control method based on iterative learning control to compensate for the docking errors caused by aerodynamic disturbances. For receiver aircraft with different maneuverability, three control strategies are proposed to achieve a trade-off between safety and control precision. Furthermore, a practical method is proposed to predict the initial value of the learning controllers, which can significantly improve the iterative learning speed of the proposed methods. Finally, simulations demonstrate that the proposed control methods are simple and efficient for the docking control of autonomous probe–drogue aerial refueling.