US Patent 12106516 Pose estimation refinement for aerial refueling

Aspects of the disclosure provide fuel receptacle position/pose estimation for aerial refueling (derived from aircraft position and pose estimation). A video frame, showing an aircraft to be refueled, is received from a single camera. An initial position/pose estimate is determined for the aircraft, which is used to generating an initial rendering of an aircraft model. The video frame and the initial rendering are used to determining refinement parameters (e.g., a translation refinement and a rotational refinement) for the initial position/pose estimate, providing a refined position/pose estimate for the aircraft. The position/pose of a fuel receptacle on the aircraft is determined, based on the refined position/pose estimate for the aircraft, and an aerial refueling boom may be controlled to engage the fuel receptacle. Examples extract features from the aircraft in the video frame and the aircraft model rendering, and use a deep learning neural network (NN) to determine the refinement parameters.