Mission Analysis and Design of Lighter-than-Air Flying Vehicles (2nd Edition)

Dear Colleagues,

Following the great interest shown by contributors and readers for the topics of our previous Special Issue in MDPI's Aerospace journal, we are pleased to announce a second edition devoted to novel studies related to lighter-than-air (LTA) flying vehicles. LTA vehicles are gaining the attention of the industry, thanks primarily to the improvement they offer in terms of endurance in flight and ease of operation (ground infrastructures) compared to fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft. Furthermore, they cope, in principle, very well with fully electric or hybrid-electric power-trains, since less energy and power should be needed with respect to other flying vehicles to fly an assigned mission.

This Special Issue aims to collect articles that present the outcomes of current research in the field of LTA vehicles, with two particular focal points: the first is on mission study, including novel possible missions for LTA vehicles, the negotiation of specifications, comparisons to other flying machines (also in terms of ground equipment), etc. This shall trace a map of the most likely missions that could potentially be covered by LTA vehicles, accounting for current technology. The second focus is on preliminary design: in principle, electrification enables some advantages, such as an increase in endurance and the achievement of novel control configurations based on thrust vectoring, but an increase in weight may result from the adoption of batteries or other electric components, thus requiring trade-off analysis to select the most promising design solutions. Developing on this focus may produce a knowledge base supporting industrial design processes.

Prof. Dr. Alberto Rolando
Dr. Carlo E. D. Riboldi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• lighter than air
• airship
• mission design
• scenario study
• mission analysis
• balloon
• electric
• solar power
• hybrid electric
• fuel cell
• hydrogen
• helium
• electrification
• operation
• ground support
• ground infrastructure
• hull design
• preliminary design
• sizing
• lofting
• unmanned LTA
• unmanned vehicles
• low atmosphere
• deployment
• stratospheric missions
• attitude control
• motion prediction
• simulation
• optimal sizing
• automated sizing

• Mission Analysis and Design of Lighter-than-Air Flying Vehicles in Aerospace (12 articles)