Modeling and control for actively stabilized aerial refueling drogue with momentum rings

The aerial refueling hose-drogue exhibits unstable motion because of atmospheric turbulence and other disturbances, increasing the uncertainty and risk of the docking process. An actively stabilized drogue with spinning momentum rings is designed, integrating a pair of bias momentum rings at the drogue cup to achieve pendulous suppressionib and avoid collision between rudders and the refueling pod when recovering the drogue. A dynamic model of the hose-drogue considering rotation of momentum rings is established based on the Lagrange equation where the hose is modeled by a series of pendulums-connected rigid links. Based on this model, the gust and atmospheric turbulence interference on the hose-drogue is analyzed. A pendulous motion suppression strategy based on momentum rings control is proposed to change the angular momentum of the system by adjusting the rotational rate of the momentum rings. The simulation results show that the regulating time is significantly shortened under gust interference, and the pendulous amplitude of the drogue is effectively reduced under turbulence interference, attenuating the high-frequency chattering of the drogue motion and creating conditions for precise docking control.