Stabilization of an unconventional large airship when hovering

Abstract

In this paper, we present the stabilization of an unconventional unmanned airship above a loading and unloading area. The study concerns a quad‐rotor flying wing airship. This airship is devoted to freight transport. However, during the loading and unloading phases, the airship is very sensitive to squalls. In this context, we present in this paper the dynamic model of the airship, and we propose a strategy for controlling it under the effects of a gust of wind. A feedforward/feedback control law is proposed to stabilize the airship when hovering. As part of the control allocation, the non‐linear equations between the control vectors and the response of the airship actuators are highlighted and solved analytically through energy optimization constraints. A comparison with classical numerical algorithms was performed and demonstrated the power and interest of our analytic algorithm.