Optimal Control of a Solar Airship

Nowadays it is necessary to research alternatives to airplanes in order to counteract climate change.The aim of the present work is therefore to determine the optimal flight path for a solar airship by means of an algorithm. For this purpose, two different variants for optimizing the flight time are investigated and compared with each other. On the one hand the Dijkstra algorithm and on the other hand the particle swarm optimization algorithm were tested. The winds have a positive effect on the flight duration in both variants as well as in each flight direction, since the time can be reduced in any case. Both algorithms also converge against the same path to find the shortest path. The Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm has the advantage that its path is always self-optimizing. So that this Algorithm shows more potential for further development.