We study the airplane refueling problem which was introduced by the physicists Gamow and Stern in their classical book Puzzle-Math (1958). Sticking to the original story behind this problem, suppose we have to deliver a bomb in some distant point of the globe, the distance being much greater than the range of any individual airplane at our disposal. Therefore, the only feasible option to carry ...

Autonomous aerial refueling technology is an effective solution to extend flight duration of unmanned aerial vehicles, and also a great challenge due to its high risk. For autonomous probeand-drogue refueling tasks, relative navigation to provide relative position between the receiver aircraft and the refueling drogue is the first and essential step, and vision-based method is the most frequent...

Autonomous in-flight air refueling is an important capability for the future deployment of unmanned air vehicles, since they will likely be ferried in flight to overseas theaters of operation instead of being shipped unassembled in containers. This paper introduces a vision sensor based on active deformable contour algorithms, and a relative navigation system that enables precise and reliable b...

Satellite refueling can extend the lifetime of satellite constellations. Peer-to-peer satellite refueling in particular has the potential to make the most efficient use of the fuel contained in the constellation by redistributing it as on a need-to basis. In this paper we present an alternative implementation of P2P refueling, namely pairing up fuel sufficient satellites with fuel deficient sat...

Abundant availability and potential for lower CO2 emissions are drivers for increased utilization of natural gas in automotive engines for transportation applications. However scarce refueling resources for on-road vehicles impose an infrastructure limited barrier on natural gas use in transportation. A novel ‘bimodal’ engine which can operate in a compressor mode has been developed that allows...

a r t i c l e i n f o The fixed-route vehicle-refueling problem (FRVRP) is a mathematical problem widely used in the U.S. trucking industry. The FRVRP seeks the best refueling policy (sequence of fuel stations to use, along with the fueling quantity at each station) for a given (fixed) origin–destination route that minimizes a vehicle's refueling cost. While effective, the current FRVRP methods...

This paper addresses a fuel-constrained, autonomous vehicle path planning problem in the presence of multiple refueling stations. We are given a set of targets, a set of refueling stations, and a depot where m vehicles are stationed. The vehicles are allowed to refuel at any refueling station, and the objective of the problem is to determine a route for each vehicle starting and terminating at ...

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) has recently completed development of the first industry standard for a reliable, spill-proof locomotive refueling system. The Locomotive Fueling Interface Standard (LFIS) is an open, non-proprietary standard that incorporates a combination of the latest, proven refueling equipment technologies adapted for use in the railroad environment. The LFIS was...

The planning and scheduling of the operations involved in the outages of nuclear power plants has a great impact in terms of the outage costs (replacement power, labor cost, etc.), use of scarce resources and implementation of safety procedures. Prior to 1979, before the accident at Three Mile Island (TMI), refueling was the driving factor of outages of nuclear power plants: maintenance plans w...

This paper presents three heuristic algorithms that solve for the optimal locations for refueling stations for alternative-fuels, such as hydrogen, ethanol, biodiesel, natural gas, or electricity. The Flow Refueling Location Model (FRLM) locates refueling stations to maximize the flow that can be refueled with a given number of facilities. The FRLM uses path-based demands, and because of the li...