Docking navigation method for UAV autonomous aerial refueling

In this paper, a docking navigation method for autonomous aerial refueling (AAR) of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based on a binocular vision system (BVS) is proposed. A BVS simulation platform is built for simulation research purposes. First, unnecessary scene information in the image is filtered through green light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and filters. Then the image is processed via graying, binarization, and median filtering to highlight the connected area of the LED in the image. Subsequently, the center of mass of the connected area is selected as the feature point (FP), and the FPs are described using an improved Haar wavelet transform. The multidimensional description vector of FP is obtained and matched. Finally, the position and pose of the refueling cone sleeve are estimated. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the presented AAR navigation method.