Interacting Simulink and Unreal Engine
Faculty Mentor Name
Bradley Wall
Format Preference
Poster
Abstract
An important aspect of solving problems in spaceflight dynamics is t he visualization of solutions. As part of the AE 426 course (Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics), student s are taught how to use Simulink and its built-in animation tools for this purpose. This functionality is set to be removed in a future release of Simulink, and will be replaced with 3D rendering software Unreal Engine. This project aimed to get ahead of t hat change by reproducing t h e animations used for AE 426 using Unreal Engine. It also looked to do so in a way that could easily be replicated by future students. To begin, we created basic models of the Earth and of a simple coordinate frame. which served as our spacecraft. From t here. we imported all of the files into Simulink and managed to integrate the models into existing programs used in A E 42 6. Finally, we compared the results to the old system and tweaked our program until the animations matched. We also identified a few problems wit h both Unreal Engine and the Simulink animation tools, which we found work-around s for. Future work on this project will aim to create more detailed and accurate spacecraft model s, look into t he feasibility of using other software beside s Unreal Engine for the models, and find more consistent, replicable solutions to the animation inconsistencies that we found.
Interacting Simulink and Unreal Engine
An important aspect of solving problems in spaceflight dynamics is t he visualization of solutions. As part of the AE 426 course (Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics), student s are taught how to use Simulink and its built-in animation tools for this purpose. This functionality is set to be removed in a future release of Simulink, and will be replaced with 3D rendering software Unreal Engine. This project aimed to get ahead of t hat change by reproducing t h e animations used for AE 426 using Unreal Engine. It also looked to do so in a way that could easily be replicated by future students. To begin, we created basic models of the Earth and of a simple coordinate frame. which served as our spacecraft. From t here. we imported all of the files into Simulink and managed to integrate the models into existing programs used in A E 42 6. Finally, we compared the results to the old system and tweaked our program until the animations matched. We also identified a few problems wit h both Unreal Engine and the Simulink animation tools, which we found work-around s for. Future work on this project will aim to create more detailed and accurate spacecraft model s, look into t he feasibility of using other software beside s Unreal Engine for the models, and find more consistent, replicable solutions to the animation inconsistencies that we found.