At the Imperial College London have developed a drone is amphibious, able to dive under the water, doing the sampling, and then emerge and continue the flight. An interesting ability of the unmanned aerial vehicle was able to realize with the help of tanks from which the surfacing is ejected a powerful jet stream of gas.
It is no coincidence that a drone similar to the fish-flying squirrel, because the developers when creating the device was inspired by examples of different animals, studying diving insects, amphibians and fish. Drone AquaMAV when immersed in water, folds its wings in order to dive more smoothly. The body and wings of the drone is covered with water-repellent coating.
The weight of the prototype is about 200 grams, so it is a small battery allows the drone to fly about 15 minutes with a speed of 10 meters per second. Smart drone can on one charge to fly about five miles, along the way, making the sample sets, and then return back to the station, which was launched.
The case of the drone has sustained numerous blows on the deck or the water surface, it is made from an alloy of Kevlar and carbon fiber. The prototype was successful, so now the developers are testing, and along the way, and are looking for investors to help bring development to the end, and to start mass production of the devices.
Drone AquaMAV able to dive into the water, emerge and continue the flight
Vyacheslav Larionov