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Team members:

• Joseph Brannan
• Philip Grippi
• Daniel McCabe
• Nguyen Trinh
• David Wolpoff

The goal of this project is to design, and realize a control system for a fully automated dirigible. The implementation of this project involves highly modular design, allowing individual subsections to be designed, built, and tested concurrently, but independent of other subsystems. This modularity allows the system to function in a wide variety of applications with only minor modifications to one or two subsystems; i.e.: control of a blimp, remote-controlled car, or other device to employ overall functionality of subsystems.

The complete system will control movement of the blimp from a starting point to a final destination based on user-defined locational input. The blimp will control elevation and yaw via two servo-controlled adjustable-pitch drive motors. Obstacles along the user-programmed path are detected with infrared proximity sensors; course is adjusted accordingly to circumvent obstacles while proceeding toward the final objective. Position relative to the starting point will be determined by computations based on a digital onboard accelerometer; heading determined by a digital compass on the craft. Upon reaching the objective location, audio data (or other information) will be collected and can then be returned to the starting location.