Transient thermal behavior of stratospheric balloons at float conditions

The prediction of the thermal behavior of stratospheric balloons under varying environmental conditions is one of the key issues in the design and flight test of balloons. In this paper, a three-dimensional transient thermal model is developed to predict the thermal behavior of spherical stratospheric balloons. The diurnal variations of the skin and lifting gas temperatures at float conditions are discussed in detail. The further studies on the thermal behavior of stratospheric balloons are presented also.     

平流层飞艇蒙皮材料的研究

文章介绍了飞艇蒙皮材料的组成与选择,并对当前平流层飞艇研制中有关材料方面的某些问题,如飞艇主结构层材料的组成与特性、飞艇内外气囊材料的膜材、纤维的配置织法、主结构纤维的涂层前工艺、飞艇气囊膜片的连接等方面进行了分析与介绍。以供在研制平流层飞艇的膜材时作参考。     

平流层飞艇的组合导航研究

针对平流层飞艇的飞行特点,提出SINS/GPS/陆标组合导航方法,给出SINS/陆标组合导航的观测模型,并将状态与偏差分离的估计算法与联邦滤波相结合,应用于SINS/GPS/陆标组合导航系统.数学仿真结果表明:新组合导航系统相对于SINS/GPS组合导航系统可以有效改善平台误差角的估计精度,同时,提出的简化状态与偏差分离联邦滤波算法能在保持滤波精度基本不变的前提下减少计算量.     

中国上空平流层准零风层的特征分析

利用ECMWF提供的ERA-40再分析风场资料首次分析了中国上空平流层准零风层的特点及其随季节和地理位置的变化特征.结果表明,准零风层一般处于18～25 km高度范围内,零风线所在的高度随时间和地理位置的不同稍有变化.根据准零风层随纬度的变化特征,中国上空可以分成三个区域:低纬地区(5°N～20°N)、中低纬过渡区域(20°N～32.5°N)和中高纬地区(32.5°N～55°N).低纬地区一般在冬季和初春有准零风层结构存在;中高纬地区一般在春末和夏季存在准零风层结构;而中低纬过渡区域是否有准零风层结构存在还与准两年震荡(QBO)有关,在QBO东风相位时,过渡区域呈现的特性偏向于中纬特性,在QBO西风相位时,过渡区域呈现的特性偏向于低纬特性.准零风层随经度变化非常小,零风线所在高度随经度的变化幅度一般不超过2 km,过渡区域的变化幅度相对大些.      

Analytical study on the inflated shape of a super pressure balloon covered with a diamond-shaped net

In the last two decades, extensive efforts have been made to develop a large super pressure balloon (SPB) capable of carrying heavy payloads for scientific observations of long durations. Due to recent achievements by the NASA Balloon Program Office, practical operations of large-scale lobed-pumpkin SPB will be realized in the near future. Meanwhile, the research team initiated the development of a lightweight SPB with an alternative design concept, in which the entire balloon is covered by a diamond-shaped net. In this work, the static structural response of the proposed SPB is analyzed by establishing a mathematical model to predict its inflated shape. This model is validated by comparing the generated results with those obtained from nonlinear finite element analysis. Excellent agreement between the analytical solutions and the corresponding finite element results was obtained. On the basis of the mathematical model, the inflated shape of the SPB is investigated and unique structural characteristics are deduced, i.e., the balloon inflates into a cylinder-like shape for a certain geometry of the cover net. This structural feature can be explained by considering the equilibrium of forces applied to the cover net.     

Variability and climatology of precipitable water vapor from 12-year GPS observations in Taiwan

Because of global warming, global sea levels have risen, the frequency of drought in Taiwan is much more frequent in winter and spring, and rainfall tends to concentrate in summer. The probability of disaster-type weather has also increased significantly. Estimating precipitable water vapor (PWV) through GPS signals, related studies and analyses of weather conditions, and the effective use of meteorological forecasts have been valued by many meteorological research organizations and officials. In this study, PWV data from 2006 to 2017 and rainfall data were used for long-term harmonic analysis. PWV data calculated by ECMWF (ECMWF-PWV) and PWV data calculated by GPS (GPS-PWV) were subjected to regression analysis to verify the reliability of the GPS-PWV data. The research results show that GPS-PWV and ECMWF-PWV have extremely high correlations; however, the climatic characteristics of some regions and the high spatial resolution of GPS-PWV are able to accurately calculate the high topographic relief of small areas. It is judged that the GPS-PWV is more accurate than the ECMWF-PWV. It is worth noting that the PWV trend of the regions during the 6-year-before period has not changed very much, but the rainfall trend has changed obviously. Except for the eastern region, most of the regions show a decreasing trend year by year. More long-term observations are still needed to prove whether this phenomenon relates to global warming. Long-term rainfall analysis showed that the topography blocked water vapor to the western, southern, and mountainous regions, making them distinctly wet or dry. The harmonic curve showed great consistency with the peaks of PWV and rainfall. However, in the northern and eastern parts of the windward side, the time when maximum rainfall occurred each year may be one month later than the time when the maximum PWV value occurred each year. The reason for this difference is likely to be a decrease in the number of autumn typhoons, resulting in a nearly one-month difference in PWV peaks and rainfall peaks. Finally, we analyzed the linear trend of GPS-PWV and temperature for all regions in Taiwan, and found that annual increasing rate of GPS-PWV and temperature of all regions are within 0.4–0.5 mm/year and 0.04–0.11 C°/year, respectively.     

平流层飞艇定点保持模式控制方法研究

平流层飞艇作为执行高空长航时任务的平台近年来引起了全球范围的关注。平流层飞艇运行的技术难题之一就是其在定点保持模式下的自主定位和定姿问题。本文率先建立了平流层飞艇定点保持模式的动力学模型,在此基础上,采用李雅普诺夫(Lyapunov)稳定性理论针对平流层飞艇定点保持模式的非线性系统设计了一种非线性控制律,并证明了所得到的闭环系统是全局渐近稳定的。通过数学仿真验证了该控制方法对非线性系统控制的有效性。     

Station-keeping control for a stratospheric airship platform via fuzzy adaptive backstepping approach

This paper presents a novel approach for station-keeping control of a stratospheric airship platform in the presence of parametric uncertainty and external disturbance. First, conceptual design of the stratospheric airship platform is introduced, including the target mission, configuration, energy sources, propeller and payload. Second, the dynamics model of the airship platform is presented, and the mathematical model of its horizontal motion is derived. Third, a fuzzy adaptive backstepping control approach is proposed to develop the station-keeping control system for the simplified horizontal motion. The backstepping controller is designed assuming that the airship model is accurately known, and a fuzzy adaptive algorithm is used to approximate the uncertainty of the airship model. The stability of the closed-loop control system is proven via the Lyapunov theorem. Finally, simulation results illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed control approach.     

平流层飞艇飞行温度限和飞行速度限分析

平流层飞艇的飞行性能对其飞行安全、机动能力等非常重要.本文结合平流层飞艇的特点,提出"飞行温度限"和"飞行速度限"对其极限飞行性能进行评估,并在理论分析的基础上,提出相应的估算方法.通过具体实例,对平流层飞艇的极限飞行性能进行评估.     

Temperature and pressure variability in mid-latitude low atmosphere and stratosphere-ionosphere coupling

This study presents the continuation of our previous analysis of variations of atmospheric and space weather parameters above Iberian Peninsula along two years near the 24th solar cycle maximum. In the previous paper (Morozova et al., 2017) we mainly discussed the first mode of principal component analysis of tropospheric and lower stratospheric temperature and pressure fields, which was shown to be correlated with lower stratospheric ozone and anti-correlated with cosmic ray flux. Now we extend the investigation to the second mode, which suggests a coupling between the stratosphere and the ionosphere.This second mode, located in the low and middle stratosphere (and explaining ~7% of temperature and ~3% of geopotential height variations), showed to be statistically significantly correlated with variations of the middle stratosphere ozone content and anti-correlated with variations of ionospheric total electron content. Similar co-variability of these stratospheric and ionospheric parameters was also obtained with the wavelet cross-coherence analysis.To investigate the role of atmospheric circulation dynamics and the causal nature of the found correlations, we applied the convergent cross mapping (CCM) analysis to our series. Strong evidence for the stratosphere-ionosphere coupling were obtained for the winter 2012–2013 that is characterized by the easterly QBO phase (quasi-biennial oscillations of the direction of the stratospheric zonal winds) and a strong SSW (sudden stratospheric warming event). Further analysis (for the three-year time interval 2012–2015) hint that SSWs events play main role in emphasizing the stratosphere-ionosphere coupling.