Assessing the Technical-Economic Feasibility of Unmanned Airships: Methodology and Case-Studies
Carlo E.D. RIBOLDI, Luca FANCHINI
Abstract. This paper outlines a comparative analysis of acquisition, operation & maintenance and overall mission costs carried out on three test cases, where existing flying machines currently flying operational missions (specifically, a multi-copter UAV, a fixed-wing UAV and a manned helicopter) are compared to a novelly designed unmanned airship. The analysis was carried out designing a specific airship for each mission by employing a well-proven technique implemented in the Morning Star suite at Politecnico di Milano. Furthermore, costs are evaluated through estimation relationships accounting for the specific features of an airship, in a fashion suggested by cost estimation methods available for fixed-wing aircraft. The results allow for interesting comparisons, and show where a small-scale unmanned LTA may reduce the cost associated to procurement and operation compared to other flying platforms, while successfully capturing the same mission target as current solutions.
Keywords
Lighter Than Air, LTA, Airship, Cost Analysis, Cost Estimation, Business Case, Competitors, Unmanned Airships, UAV, Helicopter, Drone, Design
Published online 7/20/2026, 6 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Carlo E.D. RIBOLDI, Luca FANCHINI, Assessing the Technical-Economic Feasibility of Unmanned Airships: Methodology and Case-Studies, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 69, pp 833-838, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904251-147
The article was published as article 147 of the book CEAS – AIDAA Conference 2025
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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