Hybrid Unmanned Vehicles

Unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) are used in a multitude of applications for military, research, and/or civil purposes (Yao et al., 2023). The missions that UAVs are used for involve intelligence gathering, stealth, defense, and attack missions for the military, and search and rescue, sampling, monitoring, and mapping missions for civil applications (Yao et al., 2023). Though UAVs can perform a plethora of mission types, especially those considered to be arduous by nature for humans, there exist certain limitations that prevent the UAVs from being fully applicable for missions that require perspective and execution from multiple fronts (Zha et al., 2019).

Current UAVs lack adaptability in certain environments which obstructs their performance, efficiency, and operational range, decreasing their reliability overall. There has been a wave of technological developments applied to UAVs to make them more efficient and powerful, as a result, the idea of hybrid UAVs that can travel and complete missions in multiple environments, thereby, increasing their performance, efficiency, operational range, and adaptability, has surfaced (Zha et al., 2019). Mission parameters may require multiple UAVs for completion or one that is able to execute the mission in its entirety, due to the integration of multiple vehicle features (Crouse, 2010). While it is an option to introduce multiple UAVs into an operation, which has it benefits, it is far more efficient and reliable to develop a hybrid, since multiple UAVs will increase mission complexity. As technological and societal enhancements continue, and the tasks grow ever-more demanding, the need for hybrid vehicles grows too, which is why developing a UAV such as Aerobian is crucial (Yao et al., 2023).

​ The purpose of this project is to develop Aerobian, the hybrid UAV capable of both aerial and aquatic maneuverability. The main goals of Aerobian are to enable the UAV with the mechanical capability of switching from aerial to aquatic modes at the will and execute missions in any water or air-based setting. Aerobian will become the future of the drone industry as it will allow for more missions to be completed at higher efficiencies and speeds.

Stay tuned to see what exactly is Aerobian and why it is the future.

References

1. Alzu’bi, H., Mansour, I., & Rawashdeh, O. (2018). Loon Copter: Implementation of a hybrid unmanned aquatic — aerial quadcopter with active buoyancy control. Journal of Field Robotics, 35(5), 764 — 778. https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.21777
2. Crouse, G. (2010). Conceptual design of a submersible airplane. 48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2010-1012
3. Horn, A. C., Pinheiro, P. M., Silva, C. B., Neto, A. A., & Drews-Jr, P. L. (2019). A study on configuration of propellers for multirotor-like hybrid aerial-aquatic vehicles. 2019 19th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR). https://doi.org/10.1109/icar46387.2019.8981667
4. Lu, D., Xiong, C., Zeng, Z., & Lian, L. (2019). A multimodal aerial underwater vehicle with extended endurance and capabilities. 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). https://doi.org/10.1109/icra.2019.8793985
5. Lyu, C., Lu, D., Xiong, C., Hu, R., Jin, Y., Wang, J., Zeng, Z., & Lian, L. (2022). Toward a gliding hybrid aerial underwater vehicle: Design, fabrication, and experiments. Journal of Field Robotics, 39(5), 543 — 556. https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.22063
6. Puppala, R., Sivadasan, N., Vyas, A., Molawade, A., Ranganathan, T., & Thondiyath, A. (2019). Design, estimation of model parameters, and dynamical study of a hybrid aerialunderwater robot: Acutus. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics. https://doi.org/10.5220/0007926104230430
7. Young, T. (2014). Design and testing of an air-deployed unmanned underwater vehicle. 14th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2014-2721
8. Yao, G., Li, Y., Zhang, H., Jiang, Y., Wang, T., Sun, F., & Yang, X. (2023). Review of hybrid aquatic-aerial vehicle (HAAV): Classifications, current status, applications, challenges and Technology Perspectives. Progress in Aerospace Sciences, 139, 100902. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paerosci.2023.100902
9. Yao, G., Liang, J., Wang, T., Yang, X., Liu, M., & Zhang, Y. (2014). Submersible unmanned flying boat: Design and experiment. 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO 2014). https://doi.org/10.1109/robio.2014.7090514
10. Zha, J., Thacher, E., Kroeger, J., Makiharju, S. A., & Mueller, M. W. (2019). Towards breaching a still water surface with a miniature unmanned aerial underwater vehicle. 2019 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS). https://doi.org/10.1109/icuas.2019.8798350