Development and Flight Experiments of a Bluff-bodied X4-Blimp

The body of X4-blimp using four propellers manufactured in conventional research was a structure which has arranged four envelopes in which the buoyancy was equally divided centering on the gondola to which the propeller was attached. However, with this structure, the variation in the buoyancy arose among four envelopes, and there was a problem to which the body posture becomes unstable. In this research, it returns to the starting point which arranges one envelope at the center of the body, and the body of a fundamental structure of the non-streamline is developed, in which the number of envelopes is suppressed to the minimum, and the variation in the buoyancy is avoided by attaching the special frame which can carry four propellers in the circumference of the envelope. The validity of the manufactured body is demonstrated through some flight experiments.