Over the past academic year, Purdue AAE students participated in the Boeing-sponsored Aerospace Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering (AerosPACE) program. Teaming up with engineering students from five other U.S. universities, they designed, built, and flew a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or “drone” aircraft.

Students formed teams of nine to ten members, with multiple schools represented on each team. Tasked with devising their own missions, teams designed UAVs for everything from border surveillance to scientific-sample return from offshore research vessels. Teams leveraged 3D printing, and collaborative design and modeling software to more readily work with their disparate team members. The resulting designs kept the aircraft under 15lbs gross weight, to facilitate hand-launching, a stipulated requirement for the program. Each team was also required to make some part of their aircraft at each of their constituent universities – much like a supplier – and then assemble the drone at one location, providing a valuable opportunity to experience the real challenges faced in industry.

The completed UAVs took to the skies at a fly-off on April 13^th in Atlanta, GA. For the first time in program history, all five teams successfully flew their aircraft. Most teams flew autonomously for some duration, while one team even managed an autonomous takeoff.

For the 2016-2017 academic year, the following universities participated in the AerosPACE program:

• Purdue University
• Brigham Young University
• Clemson University
• Everett Community College
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Tuskegee University

top photo (l to r): Alden Black (instructor), Jose Fuertes, Jason Kirk, Yao Sun, Vidisha Sarda, Ryan Baker, Andrew Malner, Nathan Daniels, Will Stanczykiewicz, and Phil Baldwin (AAE DBT Engineer)
middle photo: an AerosPACE team working on its drone at the April 13th fly-off in Atlanta, GA
bottom photo: a team of AerosPACE students at the April 13th fly-off in Atlanta, GA