A Novel Position and Posture Measuring Method in the Docking of the Towbarless Towing Vehicle and the Aircraft

Nowadays the ultrasonic radar, infrared detection, laser scanning radar or other perception technologies have been widely used in the automatic docking conditions. However, it’s not absolutely applicable in severe weather such as heavy rain and snow days, especially in the operation not allowed to fail, for example, the docking of the future unmanned towbarless towing vehicle (TLTV) with the expensive civil plane. A novel mechanism is proposed for relatively position and posture measuring between the TLTV and the aircraft nose tire during the automatic docking operation. The geometrical relationship between the towing vehicle and the nose tire is obtained by mathematical calculation. The position and posture of the nose tire have been obtained by splice angles and the length of rotatable rods connected with the vehicle during the docking operation.