Aspects of the disclosure provide fuel receptacle position/pose estimation for aerial refueling (derived from aircraft position and pose estimation). A video frame (200), showing an aircraft (110) to be refueled, is received from a single camera. An initial position/pose estimate (506) is determined for the aircraft, which is used to generate an initial rendering (418) of an aircraft model (416). The video frame and the initial rendering are used to determine refinement parameters (44) (e.g., a translation refinement and a rotational refinement) for the initial position/pose estimate, providing a refined position/pose estimate (508) for the aircraft. The position/pose (622) of a fuel receptacle (116) on the aircraft is determined, based on the refined position/pose estimate for the aircraft, and an aerial refueling boom (104) may be controlled to engage the fuel receptacle. Examples extract features from the aircraft in the video frame and the aircraft model rendering, and use a deep learning neural network (NN) to determine the refinement parameters.
POSE ESTIMATION REFINEMENT FOR AERIAL REFUELING
POSENSCHÄTZUNGSVERFEINERUNG FÜR LUFTBETANKUNG
AFFINEMENT D'ESTIMATION DE POSE POUR RAVITAILLEMENT EN CARBURANT AÉRIEN
2023-07-12
Patent
Electronic Resource
English