Date of Award

9-1997

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

First Advisor

Curtis W. Spenny, PhD

Abstract

The Air Force will greatly increase its use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the next century and the latter part of this decade. These UAVs will require refueling like their manned counterparts. The KC-135 and the KC-10 are candidates to provide this refueling task. The KC-10 is equipped with an automatic load alleviation system on its refueling boom which minimizes radial loads at the receiver of the aircraft being refueled. The KC-135 does not have such a system on its boom. Because the boom operator relies on visual cues to tell him when the boom is bending to adjust the boom's ruddevators, large loads may be imparted to receiver aircraft at the fuel receiver port. While load alleviation is required for all aircraft in order to ensure that binding of the nozzle does not prevent disconnect, load alleviation may also be important for the lightweight UAV in order to prevent unwanted disturbance to its flight control system. A Controller was designed to control the longitudinal motion of the boom. This controller can control the angle of the boom so no forces are imparted to the nozzle as the tanker moves from its nominal orientation. The optimal controller design uses both feed forward and rate feedback to modulate the commanded torque signal sent to the ruddevators. The results show that using an automatic controller promises to provide accurate control of the KC-135 refueling boom during refueling operations with minimal nozzle forces being imparted to the receiver aircraft.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GE-ENY-97S-01

DTIC Accession Number

ADA329325

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