Exploring optimum power unit of propulsion system for high altitude airship

Different schemes of a propulsion system have a distinguished influence on the overall performance of high altitude airship. There is an optimum power, called optimum power unit, to achieve the lowest propulsion system and energy system weight for a high altitude airship. The paper represents an optimization model of the optimum power unit for a high altitude airship. Firstly, the optimal Latin hypercube design method is applied to obtain the sample points of the distributed low power propulsion system. Secondly, the surrogate model, which is used to establish the optimization model, is obtained by responding surface method based on these sample points. The computational model of the energy system is obtained by the airship's location and the working time. Finally, the multi-island genetic algorithm is used to find the optimum power unit for a typical high altitude airship. Furthermore, the optimization work under different typical power levels and diameters is carried out to verify the effectiveness of the optimum power unit design method. It has been found that the identical result validates the effectiveness of the optimum power unit design method.