Airship propaganda that's "a visual treat . . . it will appeal to all those interested in how artwork was harnessed to convey information in time of war" (Firetrench). Books on the Zeppelin raids ...during the First World War have, traditionally, focused on the direct impact of Britain, from the devastating effects on undefended towns and cities, the psychological impact of this first weapon of total war to the technological and strategic advances that eventually defeated the "Baby Killers." Now, drawing on the largest postcard collection of its kind and other period memorabilia, David Marks tells the story of the Zeppelin during the First World War from a viewpoint that has rarely been considered: Germany itself. From its maiden flight in July 1900, the Zeppelin evolved into a symbol of technology and national pride that, once war was declared, was at the forefront of German's propaganda campaign. The Zeppelin links the rampant xenophobia at the outbreak of the conflict against England (it almost never was called Britain), France, Russia and their allies to the political doctrines of the day. The postcards that profusely illustrate this book show the wide-ranging types of propaganda from strident Teutonic imagery, myths and legends, biting satire and a surprising amount of humor. This book is a unique contribution to our understanding of the place of the Zeppelin in Germany's culture and society during the First World War. "Well-recommended for its unique visual and psychological insights." -Over the Front "Perfectly conveys the early optimism of the Zeppelin as both a symbol of national prestige and the weapon which would win the War." -Donna's Book Blog
Aiming at flight property of airship, a trajectory tracking controller of airship horizontal model is designed based on active disturbance rejection control (ADRC). The six Degree of Freedom (DOF) ...dynamic model of airship is simplified at a horizontal plane. ADRC is used to realize the decoupling control for the multivariable system. The uncertain items of the model and external disturbances are estimated by the extended state observer (ESO) and dynamic feedback compensation is carried on at real time. The disturbance of wind is added to the simulation environment. The simulation results show that the designed tracking controller can overcome the influences of uncertain items of the model and external disturbances, and track the desired trajectory rapidly and steadily, and possess good robustness and control performances.
In this article, the agent‐based stratosphere airship cooperative control for the earth‐observing system is proposed under high order dynamic nonlinear. The distributed control is designed to achieve ...the leader‐following consensus for the stratosphere airship earth‐observing system. Finally, numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme of leader‐following stratosphere airship earth‐observing system.
•A new model is proposed to evaluate the thermal performance of airship.•The thermal model of solar array is discretized using finite volume method.•The effect of solar array on thermal performance ...of airship is unneglectable.•Temperature distribution of airship is affected by the atmospheric model.•Cloud shows negative effects on the temperature of airship for MLS atmosphere.
The wasted heat generated by the solar array on stratospheric airship may deteriorate the conversion efficiency and affect the energy system of the airship. Therefore, accurate understanding on the thermal characteristic of solar array is critical important to the design and operation of stratospheric airship. The thermal model of solar array is developed using finite volume method while the envelope and helium are modeled as a multi-node system in this paper. Based on which, a computer code is programmed in FORTRAN. The temperature variation and the three-dimensional distribution of a solar powered stratospheric airship are presented. The effect of solar array on the thermal performances of a stratospheric airship is described. The key factors such as wind velocity, insulation layer and atmospheric model that affect the thermal characteristics of solar powered airship are studied in detail. The results are conducive to understanding the thermal behaviors of solar powered stratospheric airships.
As the utilization of stratospheric airships becomes more prevalent, ensuring their safe operation becomes crucial. This paper explores the ability of an
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adaptive controller to maintain fault ...tolerance in the actuators of a stratospheric airship.
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adaptive control offers fast adaptation while separating adaptation and robustness. This makes the approach a suitable candidate for fault-tolerant control. The performance of the proposed design is compared to the Linear Quadratic Integral and Adaptive Sliding Mode Backstepping controllers. Simulation results show that the robustness of the airship model against faults is improved with the use of the
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adaptive controller.
Airship-based Earth observation is of great significance in many fields such as disaster rescue and environment monitoring. To facilitate efficient observation of high-altitude airships (HAA), a ...high-quality observation scheduling approach is crucial. This paper considers the scheduling of the imaging sensor and proposes a hierarchical observation scheduling approach based on task clustering (SA-TC). The original observation scheduling problem of HAA is transformed into three sub-problems (i.e., task clustering, sensor scheduling, and cruise path planning) and these sub-problems are respectively solved by three stages of the proposed SA-TC. Specifically, a novel heuristic algorithm integrating an improved ant colony optimization and the backtracking strategy is proposed to address the task clustering problem. The 2-opt local search is embedded into a heuristic algorithm to solve the sensor scheduling problem and the improved ant colony optimization is also implemented to solve the cruise path planning problem. Finally, extensive simulation experiments are conducted to verify the superiority of the proposed approach. Besides, the performance of the three algorithms for solving the three sub-problems are further analyzed on instances with different scales.
Purpose This study proposes a tensegrity-based traction structure with D-bar dual cable units. It is used to connect the airship and the ground to stabilize the airship.Design/methodology/approach ...The mathematical models and dynamic models of the D-bar dual cable (hereafter referred to as DD cable) unit of the tensegrity-based traction structure are established. Based on the minimum mass method, the mass of the DD cable unit in the critical state (cable member is yielding, or bar member is buckling or yielding) is analyzed. Then, the tensile strength of the DD cable unit and single cable unit under the same condition is compared using the control variate method. Finally, based on ANSYS dynamic simulation, the stability of the two structures under the same external force disturbance was tested.Findings Expressions for the minimum mass of the DD cable unit under different failure conditions are solved. Dynamic simulation results show that the capacity of resisting disturbance of the DD cable unit is much better than that of the single cable unit under the same wind speed. So, we find a structure more suitable for the fixed connection of an airship.Originality/value This study helps to provide theoretical reference and thinking for the practical application of the traction structure with a D-bar dual cable unit.
A novel path following control method related to the planar and spatial motions for an underactuated autonomous airship is presented. First, the trajectory linearisation control (TLC) theory is ...briefly described and the dynamic model of the airship is introduced. Then, based on the model, a path following strategy that integrates the guidance-based path following principle and the TLC theory is deduced. The designed control system possesses a cascaded structure composed of a guidance loop, an attitude kinematics loop and a dynamics control loop. Stability analysis shows that the controlled closed-loop system is asymptotically stable. Finally, experimental flight results for the airship following typical paths are illustrated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Current stratospheric airships generally employ photovoltaic cycle energy systems. Accurately calculating their power generation is significant for airships’ overall design and mission planning. ...However, the power generation of solar arrays on stratospheric airships is challenging to model and calculate due to the dynamic nature of the airships’ flight, resulting in continuously changing radiation conditions on the curved surface of the airships. The power generated by the airship solar array was modeled herein through a combination of the flight attitude, spatial position, time, and other influencing factors. Additionally, the model was modified by considering the variation in photovoltaic conversion efficiency based on the radiation incidence angle, as well as the state of charge and power consumption of the energy storage battery pack. This study compared the measurement data of power generation in real flight tests with the calculation results of the model. The comparison showed that the results of the calculated model were highly consistent with the actual measured data. An average normalized root-mean-square error of 2.47% validated the accuracy of the newly built model. The generalizability and rapidity of the model were also tested, and the results showed that the model performed well in both metrics.
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