Twin-hull URRG blimp control for low altitude surveillance application

Abstract

Blimp system with cameras is an appropriate method to conducts environmental surveillance, which offers the ability to hover at low altitude with less noise. However, blimps envelope causes large drag coefficient value compared to other aircrafts. Therefore, the structural design and motion control of the blimp system are very crucial thus contribute to the overall system performances. This paper presents the structural design and motion control method for low altitude surveillance system. The structural design of the Twin-hull blimp system (THCS) is separated into three parts, which are designs of blimp envelope, design of gondola and motion control mechanism. For the motion control, both open-loop and closed-loop control system are implemented into THCS for horizontal and vertical motion control. Several experiments with a real constructed blimp are performed in indoor environment to confirm the design performance and stability of THCS. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.