Vision-Based Aerial Refueling Docking Based on SURF Algorithm

Abstract

For the Boom and Receptacle Air Refueling, in order to locate the spatial position of the refueling receptacle, an object locating method is developed based on Speeded-up Robust Feature (SURF) algorithm. Firstly, SURF feature vector matching algorithm is used to detect and collect suitable SURF feature points in left and right images produced by binocular stereo vision system separately. Then the point that shows the same spatial position in both left and right images can be located through process such as deleting wrong matching points and calculating the image coordinate of the target point. Finally, the three-dimensional coordinates of the target points could be rebuilt in the camera’s coordinate system. According to the results of experiments, this method has good robustness and practicability.