Simulation of Autonomous Airship on ROS-Gazebo Framework

Airships have been revived towards the end of 20
^th
century. Airships have found numerous applications other than sightseeing and advertising. Autonomous control of airships is one of the areas where scientific research and development has gained tremendous attention in the recent years. This paper describes a methodology to simulate both the dynamics and control of an airship using virtual platforms-ROS and Gazebo. Gazebo is used to model the dynamics of the airship and ROS is used to develop a motion control algorithm.