Abstract

There are use cases that require to extend the air-borne time for aircraft. Refueling is one challenge. Intuitively, an option is to do stopovers. Aircraft have to land, refuel and take off again. Another option is aerial refueling, avoiding to land. Autonomous aerial refueling is the refueling process conducted by aircraft in a solely automated manner. A pilot is not interfering during the execution. This process involves a taker aircraft carrying the fuel and a receiving follower aircraft. The follower enters in a leader-follower formation flight where the leader is the tanker. Then the tanker deploys a cone shaped drogue basket that rails from a flexible hose. The follower can insert a probe into the drogue basket to receive the fuel.