OpenMDAO: An Open-Source Framework for Advanced Engineering Optimization
Abstract: We will discuss the past, present and future of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) OpenMDAO software for multidisciplinary design, analysis and optimization. We will discuss the genesis of OpenMDAO as an open-source model coupling framework and how its capability evolved.
OpenMDAO 2 incorporated the theoretical underpinnings from the unified derivatives equations, allowing OpenMDAO to compute total derivatives for optimization of heterogeneous computational models with arbitrary complexity. OpenMDAO 3 brought further workflow optimizations that enable the solving of large optimization problems involving large systems of partial differential equations, particularly the usage of graph-based relevance, simultaneous total derivative evaluation for sparse Jacobian matrices and auto-ordering methods.
Looking at the future, we will discuss OpenMDAO’s role in a world increasingly driven by artificial intelligence-based workflows. We will also discuss some of the tools around the OpenMDAO ecosystem. Dymos, in particular, provides a consistent interface to a variety of trajectory optimization transcriptions, allowing for the optimization of complex dynamic multidisciplinary systems.
Bio: Rob Falck is an aerospace engineer at NASA Glenn Research Center, working with the Mission Architecture and Analysis Branch (and its predecessors) since 1999. He holds an M.S. in aerospace engineering from Purdue University. Prior to working on OpenMDAO and Dymos, he was a developer of NASA’s Optimal Trajectories by Implicit Simulation software.
Bio: Ken Moore is an aerospace engineering support contractor with Lentech Inc., working at NASA Glenn Research Center in the Propulsion Systems Analysis Branch since 2007. He holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincinnati. He has been part of the OpenMDAO team since its inception and is a developer of Aviary, which is an aircraft design, analysis and optimization tool built on OpenMDAO and Dymos.