Design of the Automatic Flight and Guidance Controller for 50m Unmanned Airship Platform

Abstract

The Stratospheric Airship Platform (SAP) has a capability of performing the autonomous and guidance flight to satisfy given missions. To be used as the High Altitude Platforms (HAPs), the capabilities of controlling platforms accurate position and keeping the station point are the most important features. Under this circumstances Autonomous Flight Control System (AFCS) is a critical system and plays a key role in achieving the given requirements and succeeding in missions. In this paper, the design and analysis results of the AFCS algorithms and controller are presented. The brief summary of the AFCS hardware structure is also explained. The autopilot controller and guidance logics were designed based on the linear dynamics of the unmanned airship platform and the full nonlinear dynamics was considered to evaluate and verify their performances.