A Flying Boom Aerial Refueling Docking Control Strategy Based on Model Free Adaptive Control

To address the limitations in current research on Automatic Boom Air-to-Air Refueling (A3R), specifically including the prevalent assumption that the tanker maintains steady level flight, the neglect of the inner boom's telescopic motion, and the lack of a comprehensive full-process unmanned control strategy, this study employs the Kane method to construct the multi-body dynamic and kinematic models of the telescoping boom aerial refueling system, proposes a control strategy based on Proportional-Derivative Model-Free Adaptive Control (PD-MFAC), and clearly defines the control logic and envelope range of A3R. Validation through MATLAB/SIMULINK simulations indicates that the designed controller exhibits excellent performance, the envelope is reasonably set, and successful docking can be achieved in both undisturbed and turbulent environments. Notably, under turbulent conditions, successful contact can be accomplished with a maximum of two attempts. These results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model and control strategy.