3D printed indoor aerostats

Summary
Date	2021 - 2025
Keywords	3d printing
Partners	Prof. David St-Onge, Louis Catar (PhD)

A lightweight 3D printed structure after tensile failure

The blimp or zeppelin is an aircraft, also called aerostat (shown in the figure below[^1] ), that has the essential characteristic of being lighter-than-air. Airship technologies have known a golden age in the early twentieth century followed by a sudden decline with the advent of commercial aviation. During their short popular era, several dramatic accidents involving blimps have tainted the reputation of such vehicles. Recent developments of drones, mainly quadcopters, have allowed for their usage in several indoor cases (exploration). However, the limited capacity of quadcopters limits their capabilities for long-duration missions. However, in recent years, with the development of new materials, new knowledge, and possibilities in automation, aerostats offer an alternative transport solution with less energy consumption. This characteristic would allow for longer missions.

A blimp!

Prof. David St-Onge at ÉTS specializes in the study and development of indoor aerostats. His lab, the INIT Robots lab, also focuses on the study of the natural interaction between humans and complex systems, such as aerostat drones. He is leading a project that aims at developing lightweight rigid structures that could be part of the envelope of an indoor aerostat. Since indoor aerostats must face obstacles and impacts, while outdoor blimps don’t, their structure must be modified to consider their environment. Another main difference between outdoor and indoor aerostats is the required maneuverability: because they have to maneuver within restrained spaces. A semi-rigid structure, such as the one shown in the picture at the very top of this post¹, could be leveraged to provide a better maneuverability.

The INIT Robots lab flying their blimp around the room.

2026 Update: VELUM Membranes

This project has recently produced a major output on the membrane side of aerostat design. The VELUM work (Kheirani et al., 2026, Aerospace Science and Technology) presents ultra-lightweight composite envelopes engineered for minimal gas leakage in aerial vehicles — a critical complement to the structural work on rigid micro-lattice frames. This publication demonstrates that the lab’s research on lightweight aerostat systems has matured to cover both structural and envelope subsystems.

­[^1]:C. Stockbridge, A. Ceruti, and P. Marzocca, “Airship Research and Development in the Areas of Design, Structures, Dynamics and Energy Systems” International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences, vol. 13, pp. 170-187, Jun. 2012, doi: 10.5139/IJASS.2012.13.2.170

1. S. Drucker, S. Inman, and B. Fiedler, “Simulation and optimization of the load introduction geometry of additively manufactured lattice structure specimens” ECCM 2018 - 18th European Conference on Composite Materials, 2018 ↩