Buoyant Aerobot Design and Simulation Study: BADS

Aerobots, and more specifically buoyant aerobots, are not that common in space or planetary exploration. There is however a small community of scientists and engineers who are exploring these technologies. “Aerial vehicles used in planetary exploration bridge the scale and resolution measurement gaps between orbiters, which have global perspective with limited spatial resolution, and landers which have local perspective with high spatial resolution, thus complementing and extending orbital and landed measurements.” This indicates that an aerobot can provide a substantial scientific return far beyond the alternatives like an orbiter, lander or surface rover. Here on Earth buoyant aerobot technology is flown daily by meteorological institutes. A buoyant aerobot is nothing else than a type of balloon filled with a buoyant gas lighter than air. For the simple release of an atmospheric balloon however, a certain expertise is required. Researching atmospheric balloons lead to the exploration of these balloons, airships and alike for planetary missions. Understanding the behavior of a scientific balloon here on Earth definitely increases the insight of balloon behavior on another planet. Organizations across the world have been working on vertical flight simulation programs to estimate the balloon’s time of ascend and floating altitude. Over the years improvements were made and extensive programs were developed which included; planetary atmospheric models, 3D trajectory planning, buoyant gas selection, balloon envelope materials selection, propelled flights, etc. This thesis presents the Buoyant Aerobot Design and Simulation tool BADS. The tool has been modeled as much as possible towards the current professional aerobot flight simulation programs. The program makes use of Matlab coding for the aerobot design and trajectory simulation and includes the following databases and parameters to specify the aerobot’s design and flight; 4 atmospheric models (Earth, Mars, Venus and Titan), 4 balloon shapes (Sphere, Oblate Pumpkin, Prolate, Prolate Airship), 4 balloon pressure types (Zero-Pressure, Super-Pressure, Over-Pressurized Zero-Pressure, Montgolfier), 15 envelope materials, 71 envelope coatings. The validation of the tool has been achieved through thorough testing and comparison against existing flight simulation tools and specific aerobot design data. A sensitivity study proved that the assumptions made in BADS are similar to those in other programs and that any discrepancy effect, if present, can be minimized.Space Systems EngineeringSpace EngineeringAerospace Engineerin