[HN Gopher] Show HN: Elodin - A better framework for physics sim...
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       Show HN: Elodin - A better framework for physics simulation
        
       Hey HN! We are the co-founders of Elodin (https://elodin.systems/),
       a code-first physics simulation framework. We just open-sourced our
       core libraries on Github: https://github.com/elodin-sys/elodin
       Have you ever wondered what happens when a satellite is first
       placed into orbit? It turns out that often, they tumble out of
       control, end over end, in a miraculous fight against stability.
       Check out our demo here of a control system attempting to rectify
       this: https://app.elodin.systems/sandbox/hn/cube-sat  The
       spacecraft does not appreciate tumbling: deploying solar panels and
       antennas might not work, and doing anything worthwhile is out of
       the picture. So what are you to do about this? You'll equip your
       satellite with reaction wheels (or magnetorquers), but now you have
       a second problem. What commands do you send to the reaction wheels?
       We created Elodin to help solve problems like this. These problems
       are firmly in the realm of GNC (guidance, navigation, and control)
       engineers; they are traditionally solved with MatLab / Simulink, a
       bunch of Python scripts, and/or a tool like Gazebo or Basilisk.
       While building the flight software for a deep-space mission, I
       tried all of these tools and didn't like them. In particular, I
       found that running Monte Carlo simulations in the cloud was
       painful.  So we set out to build a better framework for physics
       simulation. You might call it "Tensorflow for Physics." The name
       fits for two reasons: we use XLA to accelerate your math, and we've
       built an extensible framework for creating new physics engines.
       Most physics engines are fixed-function. For example, something
       like MuJoCo (https://mujoco.readthedocs.io/en/stable/overview.html)
       is great for traditional robotics, but GMAT
       (https://gmat.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GW/overview) is far better
       for orbital analysis. No single physics engine can solve all
       problems, and it's hard to integrate multiple engines. Our
       framework allows you to easily compose different physics
       algorithms.  Space is hard enough--let's not have software make it
       harder than it needs to be! We are still early in building our
       stack, so we'd be grateful to hear any feedback that you have.
        
       Author : sphw
       Score  : 29 points
       Date   : 2024-03-06 21:44 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | genshii wrote:
       | Was this named after Elodin from The Kingkiller Chronicle? :)
        
         | sphw wrote:
         | Yes! We are big fans
        
       | jcgrillo wrote:
       | This looks really cool! I've often dreamt of having tools which
       | would enable things like co-evolving a drone controller with
       | physical aspects of the drone itself -- like rotor shape,
       | dimensions, components selected (motors, battery, etc). The
       | normal CAE workflow isn't set up for that kind of fast iteration.
       | Code driven modelling tools combined with code driven simulation
       | environments could make that real.
        
         | sphw wrote:
         | We completely agree. We want to develop a series of prebuilt
         | modules for various components (motors, IMUs, star trackers,
         | etc). The goal would be to let people easily test out new
         | configurations quickly by just changing the code. Ideally, this
         | will be a community effort, where people can contribute open-
         | source models of various components that have been created.
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-06 23:00 UTC)