Development of Nonlinear Six-Degree-of-Freedom Dynamic Modelling and High-Fidelity Flight Simulation of an Autonomous Airship

An airship is a lighter-than-air vehicle that offers static lift without consuming much power. This property makes it a potential candidate for many commercial applications. The target applications include rescue operations, surveillance, communication, a data collection platform for research activities and payload delivery that requires hovering capabilities, etc. To successfully apply airships in these applications and many others, airship autonomous control development is of paramount importance. To accomplish this goal, the initial step is to model airship dynamics that cover the complete flight envelope accurately. The goal is to develop a flight simulator that can test the advanced autonomous control algorithms. In the proposed work, first, the nonlinear six-degree-of-freedom equations of motion are developed using Newtonian mechanics. These equations are used to develop a flight simulator for the University of Engineering and Technology Taxila (UETT) airship. Airship responses to different control inputs are investigated, and the results are validated with the available data in the literature for other airship projects. Also, the obtained longitudinal and lateral eigenmodes show good agreement with the experimental flight data of the UETT airship. The extensive simulation results favour the dynamic analysis of the airship.