Open Source Multibody Aeroelastic Modeling, Simulation, and Video Rendering

Multibody simulation and video animation are both powerful tools for analyzing, communicating, and promoting advanced vertical flight concepts. By combining these two activities, the rendered videos have the credibility of being physics based, and the multibody simulation results can be presented in a real world setting. This paper reports on the integration of two complimentary open source tools to create a general purpose multibody modeling, simulation, and video rendering environment that can be used for real-time pilot-in-the-loop or batch mode simulation and analysis. The two free open source tools that were integrated are MBDyn and Blender.