PURT Autonomous Pylon Racing Spring 2025

Description

We are hosting a Purdue internal Pylon racing competition at PURT on Purdue Aviation Day, April 5th.

Teams will be scored on the fastest laptime around a rectangular course in PURT. The course size will be approximately 50'x50'.

Timeline

Competition Announcement, Registration Opens	2/27/25
Registration Closes	3/20/25
Stage 1: Simulation Submission Due Date	3/27/25
Nofication of Finalists	3/31/25
Stage 2: Final Competition (Purdue Aviation Day)	4/05/25

Register Here

Data Provided before Flight

1. Location of pylons (points in environment that define the race-course).

Provided ROS2 Data from Motion Capture

Name	Rate
Odometry	100 Hz

Messages Sent by Control Script

Name	Rate
Actuators	10 Hz

Sample Solution

https://github.com/wsribunma/auav_pylon_2025/tree/main

Rules

1. The lap clock will be started when the aircraft crosses the start/finish time. When it crosses it must be in fully autonomous flight.

2. A manual pilot will fly your vehicle and enable autonomous flight before it crosses the start line.

3. A python ROS2 control script must control the vehicle with a ROS2 actuators message.

4. Competitors must be students of Purdue University (graduate/ or undergraduate).

5. Maximum of 5 students per team.

Help Sessions

Help sessions will be available Tuesday nights 6-8pm at ARMS 1103.

Stage 1: Simulation with Digital Twin

Stage 1 will require you to use the digital twin provided in cognipilot to fly the virtual nightvapor and prove your control system works: https://github.com/cognipilot/cyecca, see the launch script here: http://github.com/CogniPilot/cyecca/blob/main/launch/fixedwing_sim.xml

A submission link will be provided to upload your simulation submissions. Submissions must consists of:

Video of your simulation flight
A ROS-bag of your flight
Your python control script

Teams will be ranked by their lap time. If you cross inside the race course defined by the pylon, your lap time will be disqualified. Multiple laps are fine, we will take the best lap time.

Stage 2: Flight Test

Finalists will be selected and notified if they will be admitted to stage 2, which will involve a 6 hour live flight test event. Stage two will be scored as Stage 1 with the best lap time.

Questions? Ask on the CogniPilot Discord.