Automatic airship control involving backstepping techniques

This paper deals with the autonomous airship control in a case of very low perturbations. A flight decomposition allowing one to define canonical navigation phases from take-off to landing is proposed. For each phase a reduced model is determined and a controller is designed on the base of backstepping techniques. This approach allows one to consider the kinematic and dynamic requirement separately. Due to the decoupling properties, an equilibrium state is reached at the end of each flight phase, allowing one to model easily the transition between them. Simulations of the different controllers are presented for a realistic model of blimp including aerostatic, dynamic and aerodynamic effects.