Modeling and Control of an Unmanned Airship with Sliding Ballast

Generally underpowered, underactuated, and large in size, airships express difficulties in adverse atmospheric conditions and situations requiring rapid or precise maneuvers. In this paper, a novel miniature unmanned airship with a sliding ballast is presented to address the limited altitude maneuverability. Simulated and experimental tests demonstrate that the proposed architecture allows for large pitch variations and, when combined with forward facing thrusters, rapid changes in altitude thus facilitating autonomous landings or payload delivery. Operational advantages such as increased hull rigidity and concentrated hardware inherent to the vehicle design are also discussed.