A novel design and control of robotic wheeled blimp for tele-guidance

This paper presents a novel design of indoor airship having a passive wheeled mechanism and its stationary position control. The wheeled blimp can work both on the ground using wheeled vehicle part and in the air using the floating capability of the blimp part. The wheeled blimp stands on the floor keeping its balance using a caster-like passive wheel mechanism. In tele-guidance application, stationary position control is required to make the wheeled blimp naturally communicate with people standing phase since the stationary blimp system responds sensitively to air flow even in indoor environments. To control the desired stationary position, a computed torque control method is adopted. By performing a controller design through dynamic analysis, the control characteristics of the wheeled blimp system have been successfully developed. The effectiveness of the controller is verified by experiment for the real wheeled blimp system.