  Abstract. Fixed wing and multirotor UAVs are common in the field of robotics.
Solutions for simulation and control of these vehicles are ubiquitous. This is
not the case for airships, a simulation of which needs to address unique
properties, i) dynamic deformation in response to aerodynamic and control
forces, ii) high susceptibility to wind and turbulence at low airspeed, iii)
high variability in airship designs regarding placement, direction and
vectoring of thrusters and control surfaces. We present a flexible framework
for modeling, simulation and control of airships, based on the Robot operating
system (ROS), simulation environment (Gazebo) and commercial off the shelf
(COTS) electronics, both of which are open source. Based on simulated wind and
deformation, we predict substantial effects on controllability, verified in
real world flight experiments. All our code is shared as open source, for the
benefit of the community and to facilitate lighter-than-air vehicle (LTAV)
research. https://github.com/robot-perception-group/airship_simulation
