Pteromys: Interactive Design and Optimization of Free-formed Free-flight Model Airplanes

摘要

This paper introduces novel interactive techniques for designingrnoriginal hand-launched free-flight glider airplanes which can actuallyrnfly. The aerodynamic properties of a glider aircraft dependrnon their shape, imposing significant design constraints. We presentrna compact and efficient representation of glider aerodynamics thatrncan be fit to real-world conditions using a data-driven method. Torndo so, we acquire a sample set of glider flight trajectories usingrna video camera and the system learns a nonlinear relationship betweenrnforces on the wing and wing shape. Our acquisition systemrnis much simpler to construct than a wind tunnel, but using it werncan efficiently discover a wing model for simple gliding aircraft.rnOur resulting model can handle general free-form wing shapes andrnyet agrees sufficiently well with the acquired airplane flight trajectories.rnBased on this compact aerodynamics model, we present arndesign tool in which the wing configuration created by a user isrninteractively optimized to maximize flight-ability. To demonstraternthe effectiveness of our tool for glider design by novice users, werncompare it with a traditional design workflow.