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Liang, Rongwei; Nguyen, Duc Thien An; Maimako, Samuel In: 84th SAWE International Conference on Mass Properties Engineering, Society of Allied Weight Engineers, Inc., 2025. Abstract | Buy/Download | BibTeX | Tags: Aircraft - Commercial 3791. Reverse Engineering the Mass Properties of a Civil Aviation Aircraft McCloud, Darrin In: 82nd Annual Conference, Cocoa Beach, Florida, pp. 22, Society of Allied Weight Engineers, Inc., Cocoa Beach, Florida, 2023. Abstract | Buy/Download | BibTeX | Tags: Aircraft - Commercial2025
@inproceedings{3827,
title = {3827. Dynamic Mass-Aware Trajectory Tracking of Airships Using Multi-Actors Proximal Policy Optimization},
author = {Rongwei Liang and Duc Thien An Nguyen and Samuel Maimako},
url = {https://www.sawe.org/product/3827-dynamic-mass-aware-trajectory-tracking-of-airships/},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-05-22},
urldate = {2025-05-22},
booktitle = {84th SAWE International Conference on Mass Properties Engineering},
publisher = {Society of Allied Weight Engineers, Inc.},
abstract = {Dynamic mass variations significantly influence the attitude and trajectory tracking performance of stratospheric airships. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a dynamic
mass-aware control algorithm for airships using Multi-Actors Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), a deep reinforcement learning framework. We first establish a comprehensive airship dynamics model that explicitly accounts for varying mass characteristics, formulating the state space, action space, and reward function to capture the impact of payload shifts or fuel consumption on flight stability. Multi-Actors PPO, leveraging a clipped probability ratio objective, enhances policy update stability and data efficiency in the presence of mass disturbances. Neural networks are employed to approximate the policy and value functions, while Generalized Advantage Estimation (GAE) further boosts optimization performance. Preliminary analyses under diverse flight conditions and dynamic mass scenarios suggest that the proposed approach can significantly outperform traditional controllers such as PID and LQR in terms of trajectory tracking accuracy and robustness. Consequently, it offers an effective and stable solution for dynamic mass-aware intelligent control in unmanned airship systems.},
keywords = {Aircraft - Commercial},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
mass-aware control algorithm for airships using Multi-Actors Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), a deep reinforcement learning framework. We first establish a comprehensive airship dynamics model that explicitly accounts for varying mass characteristics, formulating the state space, action space, and reward function to capture the impact of payload shifts or fuel consumption on flight stability. Multi-Actors PPO, leveraging a clipped probability ratio objective, enhances policy update stability and data efficiency in the presence of mass disturbances. Neural networks are employed to approximate the policy and value functions, while Generalized Advantage Estimation (GAE) further boosts optimization performance. Preliminary analyses under diverse flight conditions and dynamic mass scenarios suggest that the proposed approach can significantly outperform traditional controllers such as PID and LQR in terms of trajectory tracking accuracy and robustness. Consequently, it offers an effective and stable solution for dynamic mass-aware intelligent control in unmanned airship systems.2023
@inproceedings{3791,
title = {3791. Reverse Engineering the Mass Properties of a Civil Aviation Aircraft},
author = {Darrin McCloud},
url = {https://www.sawe.org/product/paper-3791},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-05-20},
urldate = {2023-05-20},
booktitle = {82nd Annual Conference, Cocoa Beach, Florida},
pages = {22},
publisher = {Society of Allied Weight Engineers, Inc.},
address = {Cocoa Beach, Florida},
abstract = {In Mid-2017 I started my first project taking a certified civilian aircraft and turning it into a special mission aircraft while working in a small consultant company. This was not a small project, it involved numerous airframes and significant aerodynamic and secondary structural modifications in addition to a completely new cabin layout with equipment installed throughout the cabin. This project was being run and integrated by a large, well known US company, but they subcontracted out the aircraft portion, including structural modifications and certification to a smaller Modification Center company. Due to contract issues, the Original Manufacturer (OEM) would not be supporting any of the modification efforts. My company, which specializes in static and dynamic loads certification, was subcontracted for Loads certification and would need to have complete aerodynamic and mass properties data for both the standard and modified aircraft to be able to show compliance with all the applicable Federal Airworthiness Regulations (FARs). As the sole mass properties engineer on the program, I would be entirely responsible for creating detailed mass properties for an aircraft while only using the paperwork that comes with a customer aircraft and any public information available on the internet or in print. This paper will document the system that was devised, and has continued to be used on numerous other projects, where detailed mass properties data is needed for customer certification issues without the benefit of any OEM engineering reports.},
keywords = {Aircraft - Commercial},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}