Preliminary Design Optimization Tool for Lighter-Than-Air Platform with Different On-Board Power Systems

Airship technology has been receiving a renowned interest in recent years due to the ability of such platforms to perform stationary flight for extended periods of time. In order to counteract gravity, lighter-than-air (LTA) platforms take advantage of the phenomenon of buoyancy, which allows them to reach long endurance with very little fuel consumption. For this reason, airships are particularly suitable for applications such as surveillance, monitoring, reconnaissance and telecommunication. Airships are complex aircraft which comprise a variety of subsystems, so their design is a challenging task. In order to aid in this regard, the present work describes a preliminary design optimization tool for LTA platforms and presents the results of the analysis on the impact of different power system configurations on the size of the airship. The purpose of this work is to showcase the potential of the preliminary design tool through the results of the analysis that was conducted to determine the optimal power system configuration for the airship as a function of the mission duration.