Dynamic modeling of the airship with Matlab using geometrical aerodynamic parameters

Airships provide an attractive solution to many challenges in the aviation industry. The buoyancy force offered by the airship enables to be used for long endurance aero applications. Key objective is to operate the vehicle with a sufficient level of autonomy under extreme range of atmospheric and wind conditions. In order to achieve these goals, a guidance and control system is needed which controls the airship in air at the specified height. The accurate control system first requires an accurate model of the airship dynamics. Based on six degrees of freedom, an airship dynamic model is presented in this paper. The aerodynamic part of the model is taken from the geometrical configuration of the vehicle instead of expensive wind tunnel test setup. The computer simulation algorithm is then derived and the easily available Matlab environment is used to simulate it and its initial validation for YEZ-2A airship is demonstrated.