The Boeing Company
FEATURE DETECTION FOR AUTOMATED AIR-TO-AIR REFUELING (A3R)

Abstract:

Aspects of the disclosure provide solutions for automated air-to-air refueling (A3R) and assisted air-to-air refueling. Examples include: receiving a video frame; generating, from the video frame, a plurality of images having differing decreasing resolutions; detecting, within each of the plurality of images, a set of aircraft keypoints for an aircraft to be refueled; merging the sets of aircraft keypoints into a set of merged aircraft keypoints; based on at least the merged aircraft keypoints, determining a position of a fuel receptacle on the aircraft; and determining a position of a boom tip of an aerial refueling boom. Some examples include, based on at least the position of the fuel receptacle and the position of the boom tip, controlling the aerial refueling boom to engage the fuel receptacle, and for some examples, the video frame is monocular (e.g., provided by a single camera).