Adaptive Fuzzy Control Strategies for a Zeppelin

Abstract

The German town Friedrichshafen has an old tradition in building airships. In the moment a follower of the legendary Zeppelin will be build using new technologies. For the control concept this is a challenge because difficult flight manoeuvres are to consider like vertical take off and landing as well as comfortable cruise at different speeds and especially the transition phase between these both manoeuvres. Because of the non exactly known complexity and non-linearity of the airship dynamics good preconditions are given for a fuzzy control concept. The dependency of the dynamics on the strongly variable environmental conditions as for example the airships speed relatively to the surrounding air and the use of different steering components like pivot drives for take-off and landing and the elevation for high speeds requires a high adaptivity of the controller. In this рарег the results of a study concerning the usage of a fuzzy concept for control of the pitch axis for all these flight manoeuvres are presented and will be verified by means of realistic simulations.