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JRM Vol.23 No.2 pp. 207-214
doi: 10.20965/jrm.2011.p0207
(2011)

Paper:

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Hovering Control of Outdoor Blimp Robots Based on Path Following

Hitomu Saiki*, Takanori Fukao*, Takateru Urakubo**,
and Takashi Kohno***

*Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe, Hyogo 657-8501, Japan

**Department of System Science, Kobe University, Japan

***Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan

Received:
September 30, 2010
Accepted:
December 27, 2010
Published:
April 20, 2011
Creative Commons License
Keywords:
outdoor blimp robot, automatic hovering, path following, inverse optimal control
Abstract
After large-scale disasters, a surveillance system is required to gather information about the stricken area safely and quickly. An autonomous blimp is the best option for this purpose. This paper proposes a control design method for automatic hovering of outdoor blimp robots under strong winds by a path-following approach. The method consists of inverse optimal path-following control in the horizontal plane and Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control for altitude and pitching motion of the blimp in the longitudinal plane. Some simulations and experiments for a 12m class outdoor blimp are performed to confirm the usefulness of the proposed method.
Cite this article as:
H. Saiki, T. Fukao, T. Urakubo, and T. Kohno, “Hovering Control of Outdoor Blimp Robots Based on Path Following,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.23 No.2, pp. 207-214, 2011.
Data files:
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