Overview of a planned subscale in-air capturing demonstration

Abstract

As drone capabilities increase, the potential missions become more diverse. The establishment between multiple drones or between drones and crewed systems during flight is one of the most challenging scenarios. For these types of operations, the German Aerospace Center is investigating an actuated coupling device approach to establish a physical link between two unmanned fixed-wing drones in the air to enable operations such as air-to-air refueling, launching and capturing small drones by a large carrier aircraft, or capturing reusable launch vehicles. This paper presents an experimental setup to investigate the feasibility of this approach on a subscale implementation. It provides an overview of the general experimental setup and highlights the configuration of the three involved unmanned demonstrators, two fixed-wing drones and the Actuated Coupling Device (ACD). Particular emphasis is placed on the ACD and the perceptual application required to guide the ACD relative to the aircraft. Emphasis is also placed on the safety aspects of conducting a safe and successful demonstration in a non-segregated European airspace. The description is concluded with initial results collected in simulations and ground tests.