Stationkeeping of an Airship

The airship is starting to receive new highlights as a stable floating platform. A floating platform can serve as a telecommunication relay station or an environmental outpost. Much of these operations require unmanned autonomous operation on the airship. Due to difficulties in modelling and identifying the airship, controlling the airship is not an easy task. Different from the normal aircraft, the airship is affected by "added mass" and buoyancy. The added mass is the additional mass felt required to move the object in a fluid. As we are searching for a stable floating platform, controlling the airship to keep station is critical. We use a simple airship model with added mass for simulation. Classical controller is used to find acceptable airship performances.