Bionic Design and Experimental Validation of a Robotic Airship Inspired by the Physalia physalis

The robotic airship is one of the most unique and promising green aircraft, however, as a “lighter-than-air aircraft” and “thermal aircraft”, its long-endurance flight has great difficulties in decreasing drag and controlling buoyancy and pressure under thermal effects. In this work, we reported a robotic airship inspired by the Physalia physalis, imitating its morphology, physiological structure, and biological behaviors. The hull is designed by imitating the morphology of the Physalia physalis, and the gasbags including a helium balloon, two ballonets, and a thermoregulation gasbag are designed by imitating the physiological structure and biological behaviors of the pneumatophore, bladder, and gland of the Physalia physalis, respectively. Experimental results show that the bionic airship has an increase of about 40% in lift-to-drag and decreases the pressure in helium balloon by 47.5% under thermal effects, and has better aerodynamic performances and thermoregulation performances than conventional airships.