Identification of Airship Aerodynamic Models from Flight Data: Preliminary Investigation and Identifiability Analysis

Identification of Airship Aerodynamic Models from Flight Data: Preliminary Investigation and Identifiability Analysis

Carlo E.D. RIBOLDI, Stefano CACCIOLA, Yan POZHANKA, Mostafa HASSANALIAN

Abstract. In this research, a preliminary identification testing of some modelling parameters pertaining to the aerodynamic model proposed by Munk-Jones-DeLaurier for airships has been carried out. Identification trials have been carried out in virtual environment employing an output-error method, solving a non-linear optimization problem on the norm of the error between the output of an estimated model and that corresponding to a reference model, assumed as ground-truth. The practical results show how some of parameters in the aerodynamic model appear identifiable even employing a rather limited dataset also in presence of noise.

Keywords
Lighter Than Air, LTA, Airship, Aerodynamics, Aerodynamic Model, Dynamic Modeling, Simulation, Parameter Identification, Identifiability, Output Error

Published online 7/20/2026, 7 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Carlo E.D. RIBOLDI, Stefano CACCIOLA, Yan POZHANKA, Mostafa HASSANALIAN, Identification of Airship Aerodynamic Models from Flight Data: Preliminary Investigation and Identifiability Analysis, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 69, pp 839-845, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904251-148

The article was published as article 148 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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