As an undergraduate, I was a member of the UVA Solar Airship Project. The mission of the team engineering project is to develop a solar-powered airship capable of continuous, autonomous operation. I worked for 4 years as a member of the control team.We used an embedded computer system onboard the airship to direct all flight operations and monitoring.

My research involved developing the dynamic modelling algorithms, as well as the feedback control algorithms and software. This research culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, as well as a paper for the 3rd annual Airship Association Conference in Friedrichshafen, Germany (July 1-5, 2000). Copies of each of these documents can be found below.

TITLE: Development of a Semi-Autonomous Control System for the UVA Solar Airship Aztec

• Turner, A.J., 4th Annual AIAA & AAS Airship Conference. Friedrichshafen, Germany (PDF - 0.5 MB)
• Turner, A.J., Undergraduate Thesis (PDF - 4.80 MB)