Station-keeping control design of double balloon system based on horizontal region constraints

Abstract

Stratospheric balloons can be used as a cost-effective platform for commercial and military applications. One of the technical challenges of balloon system is the station-keeping ability in the wind field. In order to realize station-keeping, a double-balloon system was provided in this paper. By adjusting the connecting rope length between main balloon with assistant balloon, double-balloon system uses different altitude wind layers to full advantages. A theoretical model which consists of atmospheric model, thermal model and dynamic model was proposed. A program was developed to simulate the performance of double-balloon system in real wind field. The effects of wind force acting on balloons, the assistant balloon motion properties and the double-balloon system station-keeping performance were investigated in detail. The results showed that the change of double-balloon system horizontal velocity direction over a short period of time is attributed to the forces pulse, the horizontal force acting on double-balloon system changes with the variation of the connecting rope length, which provides a possibility to retain the double-balloon system within a specific region. The double-balloon system provided in our study adjusts balloon system horizontal movement continuously and save more weight for effective payload, which has valuable reference in design of stratospheric balloons for station-keeping for a long time.