Hovering Control of Outdoor Blimp Robots Based on Path Following

After large-scale disasters, a surveillance system is required to gather information about the stricken area safely and quickly. An autonomous blimp is the best option for this purpose. This paper proposes a control design method for automatic hovering of outdoor blimp robots under strong winds by a path-following approach. The method consists of inverse optimal path-following control in the horizontal plane and Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control for altitude and pitching motion of the blimp in the longitudinal plane. Some simulations and experiments for a 12m class outdoor blimp are performed to confirm the usefulness of the proposed method.