Relative Motion Emulating Robotic System as a Test Bed for Aerial Refueling Using VISNAV and Mobile Stewart Platforms

This paper describes a relative motion emulating robotic system (RMERS) which is made up with a vision navigation (VISNAV), a novel method for proximity navigation and mobile Stewart platforms, parallel manipulators to have six degrees of freedom. The RMERS is a ground-based test bed for aerial refueling and enables already simulated results to physically demonstrate their performance in a ground level. The scope of REMES can reach any relative dynamical system which requires experimental tests. This paper presents theoretical introduction prior to making REMES tangible in the lab. The VISNAV system and the kinematics and dynamics of the Stewart platform will be shortly introduced and dynamical mapping from aerial refueling to mobile Stewart platforms will be given. Finally, some numerical results are simulated.