ACC 2027 · paper companion
Physics-Structured Surrogate Modeling of Commanded Fixed-Wing UAV Dynamics Using Universal Differential Equations
Purdue UAS Research and Test Facility
PURT is Purdue's indoor flight-test facility, in Hangar 4 at the Purdue University Airport. Its contiguous flight volume is covered by 60 Qualisys motion-capture cameras, 50 on the ceiling beams and 10 on tripods, which track a vehicle's position and attitude to about a millimetre. It is the largest indoor motion-capture system in the world.
Every flight in this paper was flown in PURT. A 63 g Sport Cub S2 with a stabilising receiver was flown by a pilot into and out of stall while the cameras recorded its pose at 240 Hz. From pilot sticks in to aircraft motion out, four models are identified and compared on the same data.
- 20,000 ft²
- indoor flight floor
- 100 × 180 ft
- contiguous volume
- 60
- Qualisys cameras
- 1 mm
- tracking precision