A path following control of outdoor blimp robots for disaster surveillance

Abstract

A surveillance system has been required to gather information after large-scale disasters on stricken areas safely and quickly. To collect the information, it is useful to use a blimp, because of its low-sky availability, safety and long flight. A blimp flying at low altitude can capture high quality images offering 3D imagery in disasters. This paper proposes a new path following control method for outdoor blimp robots under windy conditions to collect detailed disaster information. The method consists of path following control in the wind coordinate on the horizontal plane and altitude control on the longitudinal plane. And this method minimizes the lateral errors arising from the wind disturbances considering path regeneration. Some simulations and experiments for a 12m class blimp are performed to confirm the usefulness of the proposed method. ©2013 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.