Assessing the Technical-Economic Feasibility of Unmanned Airships: Methodology and Case-Studies

This paper outlines a comparative analysis of acquisition, operation & maintenance and overall mission costs carried out on three test cases, where existing flying machines currently flying operational missions (specifically, a multi-copter UAV, a fixed-wing UAV and a manned helicopter) are compared to a novelly designed unmanned airship. The analysis was carried out designing a specific airship for each mission by employing a well-proven technique implemented in the Morning Star suite at Politecnico di Milano. Furthermore, costs are evaluated through estimation relationships accounting for the specific features of an airship, in a fashion suggested by cost estimation methods available for fixed-wing aircraft. The results allow for interesting comparisons, and show where a small-scale unmanned LTA may reduce the cost associated to procurement and operation compared to other flying platforms, while successfully capturing the same mission target as current solutions.