It is a little an illustration of using an aerostat or a kite as a lifter of a regular wind turbine, by juxtaposing proven technologies.
I see a problem: the aerostat generates a wind shadow on the front turbine and even more on the rear turbine, limiting their real respective swept areas.
Using the aerostat as a hub as illustrated might be a possibility, in spite of the difficulty to make a very large and thin annular generator.
I don’t know if I like the idea, aerostats suspending HAWTs, but looking at it, this looks like a much better version of the idea than that of Altaeros and the like for example. It should probably have wings so it won’t be blown down by the wind as much.
The attachment point of the cable is at the middle of the blimp. Maybe that’s why they need the second rotor. If it didn’t perhaps it would rotate back to front. Or maybe they need to balance the weight of the first rotor with that of the second, like a seesaw.
They use a traditional, efficient material usage, blimp design; a torus like Altaeros used would be very inefficient. And they perhaps use a shaft to attach the two rotors together so they are better fixed in place.
More information on
This problem seems to be mitigated when we see the figure 1, the diameter of the wind turbines looking to be far higher than the diameter of the airship.
Other interesting features are mentioned, whose in page 4:
The exterior shape of the buoyant body is established by a rigid
helical exoskeleton installed over transverse ribs. The helical
exoskeleton is comprised of at least two helical substructures that are
wound in opposite directions. This design feature enables the rigid
hull to better absorb the torque loads transmitted into the hull by the
large rotors that are rotating in opposite directions at each end of the
hull.
It will be necessary to see if these wind turbines adjacent to the airship would not be a problem in the event of hydrogen inflation: it is possible that not, as one can see that they are installed via a respective cone, which can help to isolate the aforementioned turbines from the airship.
Additionally, their placement at the ends limits the contact surface, which is a positive point.
In general, the adaptation of wind turbines to hydrogen-filled airships should be studied on a case-by-case basis, and the wind turbines should remain of lightweight construction.
Finally, it is necessary to consider fallback positions in case of a storm.