Researchers have created a working prototype of a new hybrid drone that can fly through the air and dive underwater, achieving propulsion in both environments using the same propellers.
The drone, called the TJ-FlingFishwas developed by a team of scientists and researchers from Shanghai China Research Institute of Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Tongji University, and Unmanned Systems Research Group, China Hong University Kong.
The objective of the project was to create a dual air and water drone capable of moving in the two dominant environments on Earth, considerably expanding the possible applications of its use from the air-only or water-only drones that are currently on the market. .
“We are proposing a prototype with special designs for propulsion and thruster configuration to cope with the large differences in the fluid properties of water and air,” explain the scientists in an article about the TJ-FlyingFish.
“For propulsion, the operating range is switched for the different media by the two-speed propulsion unit, providing sufficient thrust and also ensuring output efficiency. For thruster configuration, thrust vectoring is achieved by rotating the propulsion unit around the mounting arm, improving underwater maneuverability.
As explained by New Atlas And new scientist, when the drone is in aerial flight, it operates in much the same way as the drones currently on the market: the four propellers are turned upwards. But when the drone lands on water, these propellers change direction and face down, spin at a lower speed, and pull the drone under the surface.
Once underwater, the propellers can adjust their angle as needed and can propel the drone at speeds of up to 6.6 feet per second (2 meters per second) at depths of up to 9.8 feet (three meters). At any time, the TJ-FlyingFish can return to the surface, spin its propellers and fly back into the air.
According to research documentation, the drone can hover for about six minutes in the air but can operate for up to 40 minutes underwater. However, it is unclear how many of those 40 minutes are in active motion.
The TJ-FlyingFish was also designed to operate entirely without human intervention — it is fully autonomous, which adds to the possible use cases for a finished version of the drone. Since it doesn’t need an active pilot, it could be ideal for surveys of different types both above and under water.
Although the drone clearly uses some sort of camera system, the research documentation only focuses on the multi-environment maneuverability of the TJ-FlyingFish and does not detail how the drone is capable of conducting surveys. This will likely happen once the rest of the system is more complete.
The 3.6-pound TJ-FlyingFish is still just a research project, but the design holds promise for much more.
Picture credits: Header photo via “TJ-FlyingFish: design and implementation of an air-aquatic quadcopter with tilting propulsion units.” Xuchen Liu, Minghao Dou, Dongyue Huang, Biao Wang, Jinqiang Cui, Qinyuan Ren, Lihua Dou, Zhi Gao, Jie Chen, Ben M. Chen