Amphibious Fixed-wing drone

Published on 19 May 2022. Written by Dineshkumar E

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV) in both military and commercial sectors have expanded greatly in recent years. The advancement in technologies paved a way for developing a single vehicle which is capable of working on both Air and underwater environment.

In this drone project, you are going to develop a fixed-wing drone that can able to fly like an aircraft and swim like a fish.

SLNOTE
Design considerations

The aim of this project is to create a fixed-wing drone that can able to perform seamlessly on both air and underwater. Floodable compartments on the fuselage and wings allow the drone to submerge in the water when it performs the transition flight from air to water. The open wingtips help the drone to exit the water quickly when it comes out of the water.

Centre of Buoyancy - If CB of the vehicle is negative the vehicle needs to spend more energy to climb. Similarly, if the CB is positive the vehicle needs to spend more energy to descend. You can also use Polyesterene foam to trim the CB by placing it inside floodable space of the wing.

Center of Gravity - This plays a major role while flying in the air. Always the aircraft should be neutrally balanced or nose heavy. If the aircraft is tail heavy it will frequently go to stall condition. To solve this issue the airframe is designed to be longitudinally adjustable for both the wing and battery.

Spoilerons - Spoilerons are the control surfaces which helps to perform roll action during flight and also serves to drain the water quickly during egress (coming out of water).

Fuselage - The fuselage is designed with a wet compartment to hold waterproof sensors and antennas and a dry compartment to hold the electronic components safely to prevent water from entering inside. Double O-ring seals and chord grips are used to pass through the wires inside the dry compartment. The thin tail design is utilized to minimize buoyancy.

Electronic components:

SLLATEST
Brushless motor: It is used to power the motor on both the environments air and water. It is fixed to the fuselage with the help of a waterproof firewall to prevent the water leakage.

Waterproof servos: Servo motors are used to actuate the control surfaces in air and water.

Sensors - GPS is used to provide position data, Magnetometer is used for heading, Barometer for altitude detection and sonar to provide altitude data during landing.

Flight controller - It is like a brain of the aircraft which helps to achieve a stable and autonomous flight by taking inputs from the sensors. Pixhawk is used as a flight controller in this aircraft.

Telemetry - 900mhz telemetry system is utilized for the communication between the Ground Control station and the vehicle.

Transmitter and Receiver - 433 Mhz transmitter and receiver is used to operate the drone manually and to change the flight modes.

ESC and BEC - Electronic Speed controller is used to control the speed of the motor and Battery Eliminator Circuit is used to deliver the power from the battery to other components in operating condition (by reducing the voltage).

Ground Control station - Laptop is used as a ground control station with the help of Mission Planner software to perform the autonomous functions.

Designing a cross-platform aircraft that can able to operate on both the air and water will open the door for more innovations and application for unmanned systems.

SLDYK
Kit required to develop Amphibious Fixed-wing drone:

Technologies you will learn by working on Amphibious Fixed-wing drone:

Amphibious Fixed-wing drone

Any Questions?

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