A self-modeling autonomous airship

A self modeling airship with a parametric autonomous controller is introduced in this paper. Modeling of airships for autonomous control is a detailed and often time-taking process if some of the parameters are unknown. Although it is possible to make reasonable assumptions in some restricted case, a model generally consists of parameters such as, weight, coordinates of the center of gravity, moments of inertia, aerodynamic force coefficients and state vector of the airship. In this paper we propose taking advantage of visual markers in order to observe and estimate the state of the airship. These observations are used as an input to a linear regression process to define the relationship between the velocity and the acceleration vector of the airship. Finally as a result of the regression process aerodynamic damping parameters and provided thrust are found.