Kinematics and Dynamics for Practicing Engineers Lecture 2: Direction Cosines Made Easy

Discipline: Flight Mechanics

Abstract:
Many engineers have considerable difficulty working effectively with direction cosines because they were taught in their university courses to deal with direction cosines in a matrix format, which does not adequately take into account the important role that basis vectors play in simplifying and clarifying direction cosine calculations. In this presentation, the shortcomings inherent in matrix formulations of direction cosines will be brought to light, and an alternative, less error-prone approach will be presented.

About the Speaker:
David Levinson has 47 years of experience as a dynamicist in the space industry, where he has been responsible for producing special purpose computer programs for simulating motions of complex mechanical systems, such as multibody spacecraft, robotic devices, and aerospace mechanisms. Mr. Levinson, currently retired, was employed at Lockheed Martin (formerly Lockheed Missiles and Space Company) from 1977 to 2013, and at Maxar Space Systems (formerly Space Systems Loral) from 2013 to 2024.

Over the years, Mr. Levinson has been the recipient of numerous engineering awards, among them the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) San Francisco Section Outstanding Young Engineer Award, the AIAA San Francisco Section Engineer of the Year Award in Astronautics, the AIAA San Francisco Section Engineering Educator of the Year Award, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Santa Clara Valley Section Distinguished Mechanical Engineer Award, the American Astronautical Society (AAS) Outstanding Achievement Award, and the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company President’s
Award. Mr. Levinson is the author or coauthor of 43 published technical papers, and a coauthor of the two McGraw-Hill textbooks, Spacecraft Dynamics and Dynamics: Theory and Applications, as well as four desktop-published mechanics textbooks. He is also the author of the desktop-published undergraduate textbook Dynamics for Engineering Analysis.

Mr. Levinson is a Fellow of both the AAS and the ASME, and is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA. As a participant in the Discover “E” K-12 engineering outreach program for more than 20 years, he has given 270 classroom presentations to middle school and high school students and teachers about careers in engineering. He is a popular speaker, and was an ASME Distinguished Lecturer from 2000 through 2004. For more than forty years he has lectured on technical subjects to a wide variety of audiences, including Cub Scouts, fifth graders, swimming coaches, middle school and high school students, school teachers, Kiwanis and Rotary clubs, physicians, practicing engineers, engineering graduate students, and university professors.