A survey of free software for the design, analysis, modelling, and simulation of an unmanned aerial vehicle

The objective of this paper is to analyze free software for the design, analysis, modelling, and simulation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Free software is the best choice when the reduction of production costs is necessary; nevertheless, the quality of free software may vary. This paper probably does not include all of the free software, but tries to describe or mention at least the most interesting programs. The first part of this paper summarizes the essential knowledge about UAVs, including the fundamentals of flight mechanics and aerodynamics, and the structure of a UAV system. The second section generally explains the modelling and simulation of a UAV. In the main section, more than 50 free programs for the design, analysis, modelling, and simulation of a UAV are described. Although the selection of the free software has been focused on small subsonic UAVs, the software can also be used for other categories of aircraft in some cases; e.g. for MAVs and large gliders. The applications with an historical importance are also included. Finally, the results of the analysis are evaluated and discussed—a block diagram of the free software is presented, possible connections between the programs are outlined, and future improvements of the free software are suggested. © 2015, CIMNE, Barcelona, Spain.Internal Grant Agency of Tomas Bata University in Zlin [IGA/FAI/2015/001, IGA/FAI/2014/006

NASA high performance computing and communications program

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's HPCC program is part of a new Presidential initiative aimed at producing a 1000-fold increase in supercomputing speed and a 100-fold improvement in available communications capability by 1997. As more advanced technologies are developed under the HPCC program, they will be used to solve NASA's 'Grand Challenge' problems, which include improving the design and simulation of advanced aerospace vehicles, allowing people at remote locations to communicate more effectively and share information, increasing scientist's abilities to model the Earth's climate and forecast global environmental trends, and improving the development of advanced spacecraft. NASA's HPCC program is organized into three projects which are unique to the agency's mission: the Computational Aerosciences (CAS) project, the Earth and Space Sciences (ESS) project, and the Remote Exploration and Experimentation (REE) project. An additional project, the Basic Research and Human Resources (BRHR) project exists to promote long term research in computer science and engineering and to increase the pool of trained personnel in a variety of scientific disciplines. This document presents an overview of the objectives and organization of these projects as well as summaries of individual research and development programs within each project

Research and Education in Computational Science and Engineering

Over the past two decades the field of computational science and engineering (CSE) has penetrated both basic and applied research in academia, industry, and laboratories to advance discovery, optimize systems, support decision-makers, and educate the scientific and engineering workforce. Informed by centuries of theory and experiment, CSE performs computational experiments to answer questions that neither theory nor experiment alone is equipped to answer. CSE provides scientists and engineers of all persuasions with algorithmic inventions and software systems that transcend disciplines and scales. Carried on a wave of digital technology, CSE brings the power of parallelism to bear on troves of data. Mathematics-based advanced computing has become a prevalent means of discovery and innovation in essentially all areas of science, engineering, technology, and society; and the CSE community is at the core of this transformation. However, a combination of disruptive developments---including the architectural complexity of extreme-scale computing, the data revolution that engulfs the planet, and the specialization required to follow the applications to new frontiers---is redefining the scope and reach of the CSE endeavor. This report describes the rapid expansion of CSE and the challenges to sustaining its bold advances. The report also presents strategies and directions for CSE research and education for the next decade.Comment: Major revision, to appear in SIAM Revie

Abstracts to Be Presented at the 2015 Supercomputing Conference

Compilation of Abstracts to be presented at the 2015 Supercomputing Conferenc

Local time stepping on high performance computing architectures: mitigating CFL bottlenecks for large-scale wave propagation

Modeling problems that require the simulation of hyperbolic PDEs (wave equations) on large heterogeneous domains have potentially many bottlenecks. We attack this problem through two techniques: the massively parallel capabilities of graphics processors (GPUs) and local time stepping (LTS) to mitigate any CFL bottlenecks on a multiscale mesh. Many modern supercomputing centers are installing GPUs due to their high performance, and extending existing seismic wave-propagation software to use GPUs is vitally important to give application scientists the highest possible performance. In addition to this architectural optimization, LTS schemes avoid performance losses in meshes with localized areas of refinement. Coupled with the GPU performance optimizations, the derivation and implementation of an Newmark LTS scheme enables next-generation performance for real-world applications. Included in this implementation is work addressing the load-balancing problem inherent to multi-level LTS schemes, enabling scalability to hundreds and thousands of CPUs and GPUs. These GPU, LTS, and scaling optimizations accelerate the performance of existing applications by a factor of 30 or more, and enable future modeling scenarios previously made unfeasible by the cost of standard explicit time-stepping schemes

Urban Drone Navigation: Autoencoder Learning Fusion for Aerodynamics

Drones are vital for urban emergency search and rescue (SAR) due to the challenges of navigating dynamic environments with obstacles like buildings and wind. This paper presents a method that combines multi-objective reinforcement learning (MORL) with a convolutional autoencoder to improve drone navigation in urban SAR. The approach uses MORL to achieve multiple goals and the autoencoder for cost-effective wind simulations. By utilizing imagery data of urban layouts, the drone can autonomously make navigation decisions, optimize paths, and counteract wind effects without traditional sensors. Tested on a New York City model, this method enhances drone SAR operations in complex urban settings.Comment: 47 page

Virtual Reality

At present, the virtual reality has impact on information organization and management and even changes design principle of information systems, which will make it adapt to application requirements. The book aims to provide a broader perspective of virtual reality on development and application. First part of the book is named as "virtual reality visualization and vision" and includes new developments in virtual reality visualization of 3D scenarios, virtual reality and vision, high fidelity immersive virtual reality included tracking, rendering and display subsystems. The second part named as "virtual reality in robot technology" brings forth applications of virtual reality in remote rehabilitation robot-based rehabilitation evaluation method and multi-legged robot adaptive walking in unstructured terrains. The third part, named as "industrial and construction applications" is about the product design, space industry, building information modeling, construction and maintenance by virtual reality, and so on. And the last part, which is named as "culture and life of human" describes applications of culture life and multimedia-technology