Materials and design for drogue detection in air-to-air refueling

Abstract

Abstract Drogue detection is the primary issue during the air to air refueling particularly at hazy and night conditions. It is difficult for receiver aircraft pilot to detect the probe due to hazy and dark conditions at night. There has already been valuable research in probe position tracking, system modelling, manned and unmanned refueling with the help of sensors. All these methods work only when there is proper accuracy of drogue detection. So there is a drogue detection model with the opto-mechanical system that provides better visual accuracy and navigation to detect the port and real time performance of air refueling. This method is based on direct or manual inspection of fuel port. Experiments were conducted on ground level to demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed method and results were matched with the software data. This paper emphasizes over the availability of proper light intensity at drogue area so that receiver pilot must recognize the drogue position from a distance of 50 m with view angle of 40°. Results show that opto-mechanical system achieves light intensity of 1.0307 fc by calculations at 50 m distance.