Hovering control for an underactuated stratospheric airship

A novel hovering control methodology for an underactuated stratospheric airship is presented by using path following approach. First, the dynamic model of the airship used for controller design is introduced. Then, the hovering control is transformed into path following control by expressing the wind field in the state equation, which avoids the difficulty of guaranteeing system stability in strong wind for other stabilization methods. The designed control system consists of guidance loop, attitude control loop and velocity control loop. Stability analysis shows that the controlled closed-loop system is globally asymptotically stable. Finally, simulation results for the stratospheric airship to hovering in a certain position are illustrated to verify effectiveness of the proposed method.