The 6-DOF Dynamic Model and Simulation of the Tri-Turbofan Remote-Controlled Airship

This paper presents the results of a modeling and research program for the tri-turbofan remote-controlled airship. The purpose of this research is to develop a dynamic model for the purpose of guidance, navigation, and control techniques of autonomous airships. The tri-turbofan simulation environment is a first principle force-based model which makes use of a 6-degree of freedom nonlinear equation of motion of an airship. Also, the tri-turbofan simulation environment calculates the linear longitudinal and lateral-directional models around the velocity trim points. A graphical user interface was developed in MATLAB and an open loop nonlinear Simulink model was integrated into the graphical interface. Finally, the Tri-Turbofan simulation was verified against flight test data acquired using the VICON optical measurement system. This paper illustrates the use of the Tri-Turbofan simulation environment by integrating a simple velocity hold autopilot into a linear longitudinal model of the airship.