Analytical review of visualization methods for launch and landing of spacecraft with consideration of 64-bit system boundary value issues

Oleksii Vynokur, Iryna Perova, Polina Zhernova

Abstract


The subject matter of this article is the contemporary software solutions used for modeling and visualizing spacecraft missions, specifically during the stages of launch, flight, and landing. The goal of this article is to critically evaluate popular game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine 5, along with specialized flight simulation software such as OpenRocket and Orbiter, focusing on their application in space simulations. The tasks are as follows: to investigate and assess the capabilities of the Unity and Unreal Engine 5 game engines in the context of space missions; to identify the limitations of 64-bit floating-point precision for large-scale space simulations and propose the potential for transitioning to 128-bit systems; to evaluate specialized tools like OpenRocket and Orbiter regarding their use for simulating spacecraft behavior; to analyze the existing limitations in integrating real-time data and suggest directions for further research and development. The obtained results of the article: It was established that Unity and Unreal Engine 5, although primarily developed for the gaming industry, can be adapted for aerospace simulations. However, due to the limitations of 64-bit precision, they are prone to visualization artifacts and computational errors that compromise the accuracy of the simulations. The transition to 128-bit systems was identified as a promising approach for enhancing the precision and flexibility of space mission modeling. This shift would allow better handling of the extensive scales and detailed aspects of space simulations. Specialized tools like OpenRocket and Orbiter demonstrated high capabilities in modeling aerodynamic characteristics and space missions. Nevertheless, they also face limitations in handling large-scale phenomena or integrating real-time data. The need for further research and development of new algorithms and data structures to ensure high precision and support for large datasets was identified. Additionally, improving the integration of real-time data and user interfaces is necessary to make these tools more accessible. Conclusions. The development of 128-bit systems for space simulations is critically important for enhancing the accuracy and realism of the modeling. The Unity and Unreal Engine 5 game engines although having the potential for adaptation to aerospace simulations, require significant improvements in handling large scales and detailed aspects. The tools OpenRocket and Orbiter have significant potential in specialized areas but also need enhancement to expand their capabilities. Further research and development are necessary to create new solutions that will increase the accuracy and functionality of the software for simulating space missions, as well as to develop new hardware such as more powerful processors and increased memory.

Keywords


Software; Launch vehicles; LEO; Visualization of calculations; limit states of computer systems; aircraft landing; game engines; simulation of physical phenomena

Full Text:

PDF

References


Unity Engine. Unity Technologies, 2024. Available at: https://unity.com (accessed 01 March 2024).

Day, S., Smallwood, W. K., & Kuhn, J. Simulating Industrial Control Systems Using Node-RED and Unreal Engine 4. National Cyber Summit (NCS) Research Track, Springer, 2021, vol. 310. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-84614-5_2 (accessed 01 March 2024).

Durnyak, B. OpenRocket Technical Documentation, 2013.

Berndt, J. JSBSim Development Team JSBSim: An Open Source Flight Dynamics Model in C++, 2011.

Orbiter is Now Open Source. Orbiter Forum, 2021. Available at: https://www.orbiter-forum.com/threads/orbiter-is-now-open-source.40023/ (accessed 04 March 2024).

Unreal Engine Forums. How to speed up the engine. Unreal Engine Forums, 2018. Available at: https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/how-to-speed-up-the-engine-for-reinforcement-learning/426647 (accessed 19 December 2024).

Large World Coordinates in Unreal Engine 5. Epic Games, 2022. Available at: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/large-world-coordinates-in-unreal-engine-5?application_version=5.0 (accessed 04 March 2024).

Float and Double Type (C#* reference). Microsoft Docs, 2022. Available at: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/builtin-types/floating-point-numeric-types (accessed 07 March 2024).

Direct3D. Microsoft, 2021. Available at: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3d (accessed 07 March 2024).

Epic Games. Physics in Unreal Engine. Epic Games Developer Hub. Available at: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/physics-in-unreal-engine (accessed 14 December 2024).

Gor-Ren. Pre-built OpenAI Gym interfaces for RL training with JSBSim/FlightGear. GitHub, 2018 Available at: https://github.com/Gor-Ren/gym-jsbsim# (accessed 14 December 2024).

JSBSim-Team. Frequently Asked Questions. GitHub, 2022. Available at: https://github.com/JSBSim-Team/jsbsim/wiki/Frequently-Asked-Questions (accessed 14 December 2024).

OpenRocket. Open-source software with publicly available source code. GitHub, 2023. Available at: https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket (accessed 19 December 2024).

FlightGear open-source flight simulator, FlightGear, GitLab, 2015. Available at: https://gitlab.com/flightgear/flightgear#:~:text (accessed 15 December 2024).

Making a Space Flight Sim, 2012. GameDev.net. Available at: https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/626934-making-a-space-flight-sim/#:~:text (accessed 15 December 2024).

Orbiter 2005 A Real-Physics Spaceflight Simulation. SimHQ.net, 2006. Available at: https://www.simhq.net/_air6/air_211a.html# (accessed 15 December 2024).

Whiteastercom. Kerbal Space Program - complex environment for Reinforcement Learning. Medium.com., 2018. Available at: https://medium.com/@whiteastercom/kerbal-space-program-complex-environment-for-reinforcement-learning-12318db065f5#:~:text= (accessed 17 December 2024).

Algoryx brings high-fidelity physics simulation to Unreal Engine. Unreal Engine, Epic Games, 2023. Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/spotlights/algoryx-brings-high-fidelity-physics-simulation-to-unreal-engine (accessed 19 December 2024).

How realistic is Kerbal Space Program. Space Stack Exchange, 2014 Available at: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/4505/ (accessed 14 December 2024).

Question: Is Unreal Engine Open Source? DragonflyDB. Available at: https://www.dragonflydb.io/faq/is-unreal-engine-open-source (accessed 19 December 2024).

Orbiter. OrbiterWiki, 2024 Available at: https://www.orbiterwiki.org/wiki/Orbiter#: (accessed 14 December 2024).

What is OpenRocket. OpenRocket Wiki, 2023. Available at: https://wiki.openrocket.info/Introduction#:~:text (accessed 18 December 2024).

Kerbal Space Program Differential Game Challenge. MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 2024. Available at: https://www.ll.mit.edu/conferences-events/2024/01/kerbal-space-program-differential-game-challenge#:~:text (accessed 17 December 2024).

Zhao, Z., Xiao, T., Tang, Z., Gao, X., Liu, X., Zhang, W., & Liu, B. Development of a Landing Leg with Active Buffering and Anchoring Functions Applied to the Small Body Landing Mechanism. 2020 International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), Beijing, China, IEEE, 2020, pp. 695-699. DOI: 10.1109/ICMA49215.2020/9.

Mo, F., Ye, F., Xie, J., Zhu, H., Liu, R., & Jin, J. A Novel Spacecraft Attitude Recovery Method Based on Platform Vibration. 2019 9th International Conference on Recent Advances in Space Technologies (RAST), Istanbul, Turkey, IEEE, 2019, pp. 117-122. DOI: 10.1109/RAST.2019.8767849.

Peng, C. C., Chan, C. Y., Lin, J. H., & Hsieh, T. Y. Spacecraft 6-DoF Localization in a GPS denied Environment. International Conference on Consumer Electronics-Taiwan (ICCE-TW), Penghu, Taiwan, IEEE, 2021, pp. 1-2. DOI: 10.1109/ICCE-TW52618.2021.9603214.

Cantri, F. M., Bisri, M. H., & Irwanto, H. Y. Realtime Simulation for Rocket Using Visual Programming. 2022 8th Information Technology International Seminar (ITIS), Surabaya, Indonesia, IEEE, 2022, pp. 150-155. DOI: 10.1109/ITIS57155.2022.10010182.

Wang, J., Ma, H., Li, H., & Hongbo, C. Real-time guidance for powered landing of reusable rockets via deep learning. Neural Computing & Applications, Springer, 2023, vol. 35. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00521-022-08024-4 (accessed 10 March 2024).

Abate, M., Anandapadmanaban, E., Bao, L., Challani, S., Gaughan, J., Jiang, A., Lingineni, A., Vora, A., Yang, C., & Zhao, D. Correlation Between Simulated, Calculated, and Measured Model Rocket Flight. 2014. Available at: http://ftp.demec.ufpr.br/foguete/bibliografia/Abate_et_al_2014.pdf (accessed 12 March 2024).

Niskanen, S. Development of an Open Source model rocket simulation software. MSc thesis. Helsinki University of Technology, 2009 Available at: https://openrocket.sourceforge.net/thesis.pdf#:~:text (accessed 18 December 2024).

Chander, S. Rendering & Lighting a Photorealistic Abandoned Scene in Unreal Engine 5. 80 Level, 2023. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/rendering-lighting-a-photorealistic-abandoned-scene-in-unreal-engine-5/ (accessed 19 December 2024).

Wood, A., Sydney, A., Chin, P., Thapa, B., & Ross, R. GymFG: A Framework with a Gym Interface for FlightGear. 2020. ArXiv. Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.12481# (accessed 14 December 2024).

Eerland, W., Box, S., & Sobester, A. Cambridge rocketry simulator-a stochastic six-degrees-of-freedom rocket flight simulator. Journal of Open Research Software, 2017, vol. 5, no 1, pp. 1-6. Available at: https://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com/articles/10.5334/jors.137 (accessed 12 March 2024).

Ansys STK. Ansys, 2024. Available at: https://www.ansys.com/products/missions/ansys-stk (accessed 03 March 2024).

Bykerk, T., & Karl, S. Preparatory CFD Studies for Subsonic Analyses of a Reusable First Stage Launcher during Landing within the RETPRO Project. Aerospace Europe Conference 2023, Goettingen, 2023, pp. 1-10. Available at: https://elib.dlr.de/194477/3/ELIB-Eintrag-2023-BykerkT-194477-PaperPublished.pdf (accessed 07 March 2024).




DOI: https://doi.org/10.32620/reks.2025.1.19

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.