Mission Management and Control Architecture for Automated Aerial Refueling

Abstract

Air-to-air refueling is a joint task of receiver aircraft and tanker aircraft. The tanker is responsible for guiding the receiver through the phases, providing the fuel, and coordinating multiple receivers. Each receiver is responsible for the execution of its own tasks within all phases, in accordance with the commands and clearances from the tanker. To perform automated air-to-air refueling, a system is required that automatically steps through the different phases and cares for the proper execution of the involved tasks without human intervention. This system is called 'mission management system' (MMS), whereat it is limited here to the refueling mission, as intermediate task within a larger mission. The report focuses on the receiver mission management, i.e. the tasks for a single receiver during the refueling mission.