Multidisciplinary design of high altitude airship based on solar energy optimization

Solar energy is a key factor for high altitude airships to achieve long endurance flight. In order to receive more solar energy and improve the endurance performance of airships, this paper presents a multidisciplinary design methodology to obtain an optimal configuration of the high altitude airship considering the energy optimization. First, a parameterized shape of the airship is proposed and the aerodynamic characteristics are obtained and integrated through a kriging model. Then the solar radiation and photovoltaic (PV) array models are introduced and validated by a ground experiment. After elaborating the structure, propulsion and energy subsystems, an external-internal loop optimization process is carried out to minimize the total weight considering the maximum solar power from PV array. The result of the multidisciplinary design shows an obvious increase on the received solar energy to 3.36 GJ compared with 0.45 GJ for the traditional design, which has a great potential to save the weight of the PV array laid on the airship surface. Further, the effects of the latitudes, dates and wind conditions on airship endurance performance are analyzed and in order to achieve long endurance flight, an adaptability discussion is carried out through a multi-objective optimization process. The result indicates that the improved design has a higher adaptability ratio in different environments compared with the single input design. It suggests that an adaptability design of high altitude airships might be an effective approach in airship engineering applications.