TinyBlimp: A Promising Frontier for Autonomous Miniature Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Tiny blimps are a novel class of miniature flying vehicles, which are emerging in the field of small-scale autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). These small airships are inspired by their larger counterparts and hold great potential in various applications, such as indoor surveillance, advertisement and entertainment industry. Due to their small dimensions, the usage of blimps poses significant challenges, including power sources, control mechanisms and endurance, which require substantial research and development. In this paper, we introduce the TinyBlimp prototype consisting of a helium balloon, a flight controller, motors and propellers. This platform has been developed to perform autonomous indoor missions. The evaluation of altitude maintenance and trajectory tracking proves the potential of the platform for applications in indoor environments such as, for instance, office spaces.