A theoretical study of rotatable renewable energy system for stratospheric airship

•A new rotatable renewable energy system is designed for stratospheric airship.•A theoretical model of optimal rotation angle and required area are studied.•The effects of latitude and date on output energy per day are investigated.•The advantages of the rotatable renewable energy system are studied. Renewable energy system is very critical for solving the energy problem of a long endurance stratospheric airship. Output performance of the traditional solar array fixed on the upper surface of the airship remains to be improved to reduce the area and weight of renewable energy system. Inspired by the solar tracking system and kirigami, a rotatable renewable energy system (mainly including solar array) is designed to improve the current status of the energy system. The advantages of the rotatable solar array are studied using a MATLAB computer program based on the theoretical model established in this paper. The improvements in output energy and required area of the solar array were compared between the traditional airship and improved one. Studies had shown that the rotatable renewable energy system made the total weight of energy system decreased by 1000kg when the maximum design speed of the airship was greater than 22m/s. The results demonstrate that the rotatable renewable energy system for the airship can be a good way to improve the output performance of solar array, and the conceptual design and theoretical model suggest a pathway towards solving the energy problem of a stratospheric airship.