First prototype of the drone interface by tonyinme · Pull Request #2001 · kynema/kynema-sgf

tonyinme · 2026-07-15T23:49:34Z

Summary

Adding a new interface for drones to combine propellers.

Please check the type of change introduced:

Checklist

The following is included:

new unit-test(s)
new regression test(s)
documentation for new capability

This PR was tested by running:

the unit tests
- on GPU
- on CPU
the regression tests
- on GPU
- on CPU

Additional background

Issue Number:

tonyinme · 2026-07-15T23:51:30Z

@ndevelder , here is the first draft of the drone interface that we discussed.

…tation

tonyinme · 2026-07-27T22:43:50Z

This PR is ready for review.

The failed test is expected. This PR corrects the actuator-sector behavior, so the previous reference results are no longer valid and should be updated.

jrood-nrel · 2026-07-28T15:30:05Z

+    amrex::Real z{0.0_rt};
+};
+
+inline Quaternion normalized(Quaternion q)


I think we should just let the compiler do any inlining and not do it ourselves.

I rearranged the code. That inline was needed because the function definition was in the header file, but I have adjusted the definitions of the quaternion.

d-montgomery

This is more of a general comment, but would it make sense to restructure the actuator module into a generic framework layer (src/actuator/) and separate domain-specific applications (src/applications/wind_energy/, src/applications/aerospace/)? This would make it clearer which components are reusable versus domain-specific, and would naturally place drone under aerospace rather than wind_energy. Something like this:

src/
├── actuator/
│   ├── disk/
│   ├── drone/ 
│   ├── motion/
│   ├── sector/
│   ├── turbine/
│   ├── wing/ 
│   ├── actuator_types.H  
│   └── ...
├── applications/ 
│   └── aerospace/ 
│       └── drone/
│   ├── hydrokinetic/
│   ├── wind_energy/
└── ...

Not something that needs to be addressed here, but worth considering as we expand SGF into different application domains.

d-montgomery · 2026-07-29T15:39:48Z

+Quaternion& Quaternion::normalize()
+{
+    const amrex::Real norm = std::sqrt(w * w + x * x + y * y + z * z);
+    if (norm <= std::numeric_limits<amrex::Real>::epsilon()) {


Minor and nitpicky, but this is included in the constants namespace constants::EPS and is already used elsewhere in this file.

Good catch, I have adjusted it and pushed the latest code. The tolerance epsilon was used in a few places and all are fixed now.

I agree with the comment regarding the code structure, but that is a decision that the code maintainers need to make. This PR will use the current structure of the code.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds a first-cut multi-rotor Drone actuator built from ActuatorSector rotors, and introduces a shared “prescribed motion” layer (rigid-body + rotor-speed histories) that can drive both standalone sectors and drone composites. This expands the actuator system with time-dependent translation/orientation and synchronized multi-rotor behavior, plus corresponding tests and user docs.

Changes:

Introduces prescribed-motion infrastructure (TimeTable, RigidBodyMotion, RotorMotion) and wires it into ActuatorSector.
Adds the Drone actuator type as a composite of sector rotors, including NetCDF output as nested groups.
Adds unit/regression tests and Sphinx documentation for new inputs and capabilities.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 31 out of 31 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
unit_tests/wind_energy/actuator/test_drone.cpp	Unit tests for drone geometry, lifecycle, equivalence to standalone sectors, and NetCDF grouping.
unit_tests/wind_energy/actuator/test_actuator_motion.cpp	Unit tests for timetable interpolation/integration and rigid-body/rotor motion histories.
unit_tests/wind_energy/actuator/CMakeLists.txt	Adds new actuator unit tests to the build.
test/test_files/act_drone_quad/act_drone_quad.inp	New regression-test input file for a quadcopter drone actuator.
test/CMakeLists.txt	Registers the new `act_drone_quad` regression test.
src/wind_energy/actuator/sector/ActuatorSector.H	Extends sector metadata with shared motion objects and integrated force/moment diagnostics.
src/wind_energy/actuator/sector/actuator_sector_ops.H	Adds rotor placement helper and NetCDF group-based APIs.
src/wind_energy/actuator/sector/actuator_sector_ops.cpp	Implements motion-driven placement/updates, NetCDF group writes, and integrated force/moment accumulation.
src/wind_energy/actuator/motion/TimeTable.H	New piecewise-linear multi-component timetable interface.
src/wind_energy/actuator/motion/TimeTable.cpp	Timetable parsing plus consistent value/derivative/integral evaluation.
src/wind_energy/actuator/motion/RotorMotion.H	New rotor-speed history support with azimuth integration.
src/wind_energy/actuator/motion/RotorMotion.cpp	Parses drone/sector rotor-speed sources and computes omega/azimuth.
src/wind_energy/actuator/motion/RigidBodyMotion.H	New rigid-body translation/orientation history interface.
src/wind_energy/actuator/motion/RigidBodyMotion.cpp	Implements exclusive motion-source parsing and quaternion-based orientation interpolation.
src/wind_energy/actuator/motion/CMakeLists.txt	Builds the new motion sources into the library.
src/wind_energy/actuator/drone/Drone.H	Declares the `Drone` actuator type and rotor layout helpers.
src/wind_energy/actuator/drone/Drone.cpp	Implements drone layout helpers and registers the actuator model.
src/wind_energy/actuator/drone/drone_ops.H	Declares ops specializations for reading, updating, forcing, and outputs.
src/wind_energy/actuator/drone/drone_ops.cpp	Implements drone composition, shared motion injection into rotors, and nested-group NetCDF output.
src/wind_energy/actuator/drone/CMakeLists.txt	Builds the new drone actuator sources into the library.
src/wind_energy/actuator/CMakeLists.txt	Adds `motion/` and `drone/` subdirectories to the actuator build.
src/wind_energy/actuator/ActuatorModel.H	Adds `grid()` accessor for diagnostics/inspection.
src/wind_energy/actuator/actuator_types.H	Adds `ActSrcDrone` source trait for the composite drone actuator.
src/core/vs/tensorI.H	Removes the inlined axis-angle quaternion-to-tensor helper from this header.
src/core/vs/tensor.H	Includes quaternion support to preserve existing include behavior.
src/core/vs/quaternion.H	New quaternion type and utilities (tensor conversion, slerp, etc.).
src/core/vs/quaternion.cpp	Implements quaternion operations and slerp.
src/core/CMakeLists.txt	Adds quaternion implementation file to the core library build.
docs/sphinx/user/inputs_Actuator.rst	Documents prescribed-motion inputs and the new Drone actuator.
docs/sphinx/user/features.rst	Lists prescribed-motion rotor/drone capability in features.
docs/sphinx/spelling-wordlist.txt	Adds new technical terms for doc spelling checks.

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tonyinme · 2026-08-10T16:41:08Z

+    amrex::Real cosine = dot(a, b);
+    // At exactly 180 degrees the interpolation path is not unique. Ignore a
+    // roundoff-sized negative dot product so equivalent RPY and quaternion
+    // inputs choose the same path.
+    if (cosine < -constants::EPS) {
+        b = {-b.w, -b.x, -b.y, -b.z};
+        cosine = -cosine;
+    } else if (cosine < 0.0_rt) {
+        cosine = 0.0_rt;
+    }


This has been fixed. There was an issue with the interpolation when there is 180deg separation between angles. The code will now give a warning when that is the case.

mbkuhn · 2026-08-12T15:04:12Z

This produces diffs on the regression tests (act_sector, act_sector_quad) that were added in your last commit. Are those diffs expected?

tonyinme · 2026-08-12T15:30:17Z

This produces diffs on the regression tests (act_sector, act_sector_quad) that were added in your last commit. Are those diffs expected?

Yes, we made some changes in this PR that resulted in changes to the gold files. There were some changes in quaternion handling that leads to small differences and another bug fix in the actuator implementation.

This is all correct as of this latest version and the gold files for those 2 tests need to be updated.

mbkuhn · 2026-08-12T16:08:21Z

Sounds great. I'll skim over the code, and, unless I find something, it should be good to go. After it's approved, could you update it with the latest changes to main? Then it'll be ready to get merged.

We might to a follow-on PR with the restructuring that Dave proposed, so heads up for that. Though I don't know how that could affect your other PR in draft.

Co-authored-by: Michael B Kuhn <31661049+mbkuhn@users.noreply.github.com>

tonyinme · 2026-08-12T17:13:45Z

Sounds good. Yes, the next PR builds on top of this one.
As soon as this one is merged, I will rebase and mark #2011 as ready for review.

Is it possible to do the restructuring after that? If not, we will need to restructure #2011

mbkuhn · 2026-08-12T17:50:52Z

Yeah, I think that would be fine!

Could you update this branch? (Eliminate the "This branch is out-of-date..." note)

tonyinme · 2026-08-12T17:57:16Z

Yeah, I think that would be fine!

Could you update this branch? (Eliminate the "This branch is out-of-date..." note)

perfect, thanks!

I have updated the branch.

First prototype of the drone interface

6cb999f

Tony Martinez and others added 3 commits July 16, 2026 08:26

Formatting

cd996b7

Added drone capability and quaternion formulations

9a4b957

Fixed errors from github

e3ea78a

github-advanced-security Bot found potential problems Jul 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread src/wind_energy/actuator/motion/TimeTable.cpp Fixed

tonyinme added 9 commits July 24, 2026 12:46

updated documentation and outputs

a265925

Github advanced security suggestion fix

0f22652

Merge branch 'main' into quadcopter

77d09aa

Changes from Cl errors - quaternions original formulation and documen…

6e2930d

…tation

Fix quaternion reals

cc25949

Fixed quaternion evaluation near 180.

e48bf88

Fix Github errors, radius and ncomp

058fb90

Fixed Cl errors

5e5df49

Fix remaining clang-tidy warnings

125bbe1

tonyinme marked this pull request as ready for review July 27, 2026 22:11

jrood-nrel reviewed Jul 28, 2026

View reviewed changes

Improved quaternion definitions and remove inline

221ace2

d-montgomery reviewed Jul 29, 2026

View reviewed changes

Adjusted epsilon tolerance use to constant vs std

fb1185e

tonyinme mentioned this pull request Jul 31, 2026

Actuator sector moving refinement and sampling #2011

Open

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mbkuhn requested a lite review from Copilot August 4, 2026 16:44

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of mbkuhn August 4, 2026 16:44 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Aug 4, 2026

View reviewed changes

Adjusted quaternion interpolation and added 180deg warning

f8dfab7

mbkuhn approved these changes Aug 12, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread docs/sphinx/user/inputs_Actuator.rst Outdated

Update docs/sphinx/user/inputs_Actuator.rst

aede08f

Co-authored-by: Michael B Kuhn <31661049+mbkuhn@users.noreply.github.com>

Merge branch 'main' into quadcopter

f7216fe

mbkuhn merged commit 57969f1 into kynema:main Aug 12, 2026
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