Unmanned airship design with sliding ballast: Modeling and experimental validation

Airships present many interesting opportunities for transport, surveillance and inspection but have seen little to no use in commercial or military unmanned applications. Generally underpowered, underactuated, and large in size, airships express difficulties in adverse atmospheric conditions or situations requiring rapid or precise maneuvers. In this paper, a miniature unmanned airship with a moving platform is presented to address the the limited altitude maneuverability of these vehicles. Simulated and experimental open-loop trajectories demonstrate that this architecture allows for large changes in vehicle pitch and, when combined with forward facing thrusters, rapid changes in altitude. Operational advantages such as increased hull rigidity and concentrated hardware inherent to the vehicle design are also discussed.