Aviary Input Files

Analyzing a vehicle in Aviary requires two key inputs: aircraft definition, and mission definition. Both of these inputs can be provided to Aviary in the form of a file, or directly defined in Python if you are using Aviary’s Python API. For new users, it is highly recommended to start with existing input files and modify them for your needs rather than try and create one from scratch.

“Aircraft definition” includes all the variables (as previously outlined) needed to define the vehicle, such as known physical properties and some information about how the Aviary problem should be set up.

“Mission definition” input describes in detail what the mission profile will look like, and information Dymos needs to set up and solve that trajectory. This data always takes the form of a Python dictionary - when using Aviary without the Python API, such as from the command line, a file containing this dictionary can be provided.

Less commonly encountered is raw tabular data, optionally used by some of Aviary’s included subsystems. These data tables can also be provided in the form of a text file or a Python object.

Most input files Aviary supports require units to be defined. Aviary uses the same list of units supported by OpenMDAO. If units are not specified, a default of ‘unitless’ is typically assumed, unless Aviary is able to recognize the variable used and has information on what its default units should be.