The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 15, 2025
Filed:
Jan. 12, 2022
The Boeing Company, Chicago, IL (US);
Trent M. Kyono, Wailuku, HI (US);
Jacob Arthur Lucas, Makawao, HI (US);
Nicole Catherine Gagnier, Kihei, HI (US);
Justin Cleve Hatcher, Sumner, WA (US);
James L. Clayton, Meridian, ID (US);
Yifan Yang, Kirkland, WA (US);
Paul S. Idell, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
The Boeing Company, Arlington, VA (US);
Abstract
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).