DESIGN, FABRICATION AND OPERATION OF REMOTELY CONTROLLED AIRSHIPS IN INDIA

摘要

This paper describes shares the experiences gained by the authors in design, fabrication and testing of remotely controlled (RC) airships in India. A brief description of a methodology for sizing and baseline design calculations of an RC airship meeting some user specified requirements is presented. The section on design provides details of the standard envelope profiles for RC airships, types of materials use for envelope and fins and their properties, basic buoyancy and aerodynamic calculations, followed by stabilizer and fin sizing, and description of the propulsion system. The section on fabrication describes the Radio Frequency (RF) sealing method for realizing the envelope and fins, and discusses important issues related to the system integration and testing. Relevant details of two RC airships developed in India are presented, to illustrate the application of the methodology, and also to highlight some of the abovementioned issues.