High Altitude Airship Simulation Control and Low Altitude Flight Demonstration

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in lighter than air platforms for use in telecommunications and homeland security. These platforms are attractive primarily because they are capable of maintaining altitude without requiring large forward flight speeds to generate lift, and they fill an important gap between fixed wing aircraft and satellite capabilities. Stability and autonomous control are important issues related to the long term deployment of these kinds of systems, and an in-depth look into flight operations is an important step toward deploying a high altitude buoyant platform. This research is focused primarily on developing a simulation in which all of the flight critical systems can be tested, and with which operational concepts can be validated. Simple models for all of the necessary flight systems have been developed and implemented into an expandable architecture into which higher fidelity subsystems can be implemented as they are developed. This paper also outlines a control strategy shown to be capable of long duration station keeping. A conventional proportional derivative attitude controller mated with an outer loop navigation module is tested. In addition to the simulation results presented, a modest low altitude flight test program has been executed to show the viability of some of the control concepts developed in the simulation environment. The flight testing was also performed to validate some of the design methods.