Controllable Drogue for Automated Aerial Refueling

This paper presents a new method for controlling and stabilizing an automated refueling drogue. The drogue automatically stabilizes in the presence of winds or receiver forebody effects using drogue canopy manipulation. This paper reports on a characterization and simulation study in which the stability derivatives of a low-speed drogue were calculated based on wind-tunnel data. A simulation was developed using a pendulum-based hose model combined with the aerodynamic drogue model. An active feedback control system is shown to stabilize and control the drogue to hold a commanded steady-state offset.