AERIAL POSITIONING SYSTEMS AND METHODS

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem in which conventional aerial positioning systems require expensive position determination devices and high-speed data links to allow relative position information to be calculated and communicated during aerial refueling or other positioning activities such as landing.SOLUTION: Aerial positioning systems and methods include a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) device mounted on a hub, and one or more reflectors attached to a portion of an aircraft, being configured to encode information scannable by the LIDAR device. The LIDAR device is configured to scan a field of view to identify the one or more reflectors and reflector encoded information to determine reflector position data.