The Boeing Company

Yifan Yang

Justin Cleve Hatcher

Paul S Idell

James L Clayton

Jacob A Lucas

Trent M Kyono

Elwyn William Hubbard

Christopher J Devine

James M Rush

Nicole Catherine Gagnier

Gregory W Smith

Deepak Khosla

Leon Nguyen

Fan Hin Hung

William Kentarou Kaneko Leach

James Lee Clayton

Robert Mcdonough

Jacob Arthur Lucas

A method includes providing an image to a feature extraction model to generate feature data. The image depicts a portion of a first device and a portion of a second device. The feature data includes coordinates representing key points of each of the first and second devices depicted in the image. The method also includes obtaining position data indicating a position in 3D space of a connector of the first device. The method further includes providing the feature data and the position data to a trained autonomous agent to generate a proposed maneuver to mate the connector with a connector of the second device.

Autonomous maneuver generation to mate connectors

Aspects of the disclosure provide solutions for automated air-to-air refueling (A3R) and assisted air-to-air refueling. Examples include: receiving a video frame; generating, from the video frame, a plurality of images having differing decreasing resolutions; detecting, within each of the plurality of images, a set of aircraft keypoints for an aircraft to be refueled; merging the sets of aircraft keypoints into a set of merged aircraft keypoints; based on at least the merged aircraft keypoints, determining a position of a fuel receptacle on the aircraft; and determining a position of a boom tip of an aerial refueling boom. Some examples include, based on at least the position of the fuel receptacle and the position of the boom tip, controlling the aerial refueling boom to engage the fuel receptacle, and for some examples, the video frame is monocular (e.g., provided by a single camera).

Feature detection for automated air-to-air refueling (A3R)

Aspects of the disclosure provide fuel receptacle and boom tip position and pose estimation for aerial refueling. A video frame is received and within the video frame, aircraft keypoints for an aircraft to be refueled are determined. Based on at least the aircraft keypoints, a position and pose of a fuel receptacle on the aircraft is determined. Within the video frame, a boom tip keypoint for a boom tip of an aerial refueling boom is also determined. Based on at least the boom tip keypoint, a position and pose of the boom tip is determined. Based on at least the position and pose of the fuel receptacle and the position and pose of the boom tip, the aerial refueling boom is controlled to engage the fuel receptacle. Some examples overlay projections of an aircraft model on displayed video for a human observer.

Fuel receptacle and boom tip position and pose estimation for aerial refueling

A system and method for analyzing a scenario, such as a communications scenario in which the end-to-end quality of communications between end nodes of a communications link may be affected by various factors and conditions. Such factors and conditions may include performance parameters of the end nodes and intermediate nodes, human operational performance, and external conditions, such as weather. Qualitative and quantitative representations of the end-to-end quality of communications are presented simultaneously and in a time-synchronized manner with displays of the relevant performance parameters, indications of human operational actions, and locations of nodes of the communications link and external conditions.

Communications quality analysis

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Yifan Yang