Title: Modelling and preliminary results of a tri-ellipsoid unmanned autonomous airship

Authors: Enhao Zheng; Jingeng Mai

Addresses: College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China ' School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China

Abstract: Unmanned autonomous airship has its own advantages over other aerial vehicles in near-ground surveillance and rescue tasks. In this study, we present a novel designed unmanned autonomous blimp. We built the dynamic model of the tri-ellipsoid blimp then we designed an anti-wind controller based on the model. We also implemented the prototype which included the tri-ellipsoid blimp body, the flying control system and the ground communication station. We carried out field experiments including payload experiment, remote control experiment and automatic flying experiment to validate the system. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed blimp is a potential tool in accomplishing tasks of near-ground search with large payloads.

Keywords: tri-ellipsoid blimps; dynamic modelling; simulation; control system; near ground search; modelling; unmanned airships; autonomous airships; blimp design; airship design; anti-wind control; controller design; flying control systems; ground communication stations; remote control; automatic flying; near-ground search; near-ground surveillance; large payloads.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSCOM.2016.075418

International Journal of Service and Computing Oriented Manufacturing, 2016 Vol.2 No.1, pp.84 - 101

Received: 28 Dec 2014
Accepted: 11 Jan 2015
Published online: 22 Mar 2016 *

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