Stability and control of hybrid airships

• Autor(a) principal: Gonzalez, Diego Nuñez
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/6456
• topic: Dirigível Híbrido; Passo Variável; Sistema de Estabilidade e Controlo; Sistema de Superfícies; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Outras Engenharias e Tecnologias

Nowadays, airships are generating a growing interest. The development of new technologies has allowed hybrid airships to become a reality, leading to a significant number of new research projects. In this way, numerous lines of research are opened in all areas of airship designs and, especially, this will allow the development of stability and control systems that are truly efficient. To overcome this limitation in the stability and control there are numerous possible solutions for hybrid airships. This thesis’ objective is to analyze the feasibility and performance of a new concept of stability and control system. This system is a combination of two elements: a distribution of six control surfaces and a set of four variable pitch rotors. For that, four different prototypes were built. Two of them are a scale model of the airship aimed to test the stability and control of all surfaces. The third one is a quad rotor to analyze the behavior of a variable pitch solution. Finally, the last prototype is a scale model again, but this time aimed to test the performance of a quad rotor airship with fixed pitch control. The results from the different tests showed this concept is a promising way to stabilize and control a hybrid airship. Tests of the first prototype validated a new mode of control which solves different problems related to the stability and control. The results from the tests of prototype 1.5 confirmed that a six surfaces configuration allows full control for different types of performance, being necessary to continue investigating this concept as well as its implementation along with a system of rotors. Prototype 2 results showed that a variable pitch rotor solution for a quad rotor provides an effective and feasible control, among other advantages. The results from prototype 2.5 showed that because the airship model does not have an internal or external structure, it has vibration problems at high rotor power settings. In addition, the airship was uncontrollable when utilizing a system of fixed pitch rotors, so it is necessary to study the implementation of the variable pitch ones. Finally, one can conclude that the combination of a system of six control surfaces with a system of four rotors with variable pitch is a promising way to stabilize and control a hybrid airship.