Hybrid Aerial Underwater Drone – Bachelor Project [video]

Hybrid Aerial Underwater Drone – Bachelor Project [video](youtube.com)

66 points by nhma 147 days ago | 33 comments

https://www.energy.aau.dk/aau-drone-can-both-fly-and-dive-un...

stoev 146 days ago |

Any ideas how the signal is transmitted once the drone is underwater? Typical RC transmitters run 2.4 GHz. Some systems use 700 MHz. The former wouldn't penetrate at all, the latter might penetrate to a shallow depth, but I think that what's shown in the video is deep enough that the signal would get attenuated. There doesn't seem to be a tether and the drone doesn't seem to have any computer vision capabilities to fly itself whilst under water. I wonder how they solved this.

nhma 146 days ago | |

As far as I can tell from their report (https://gitlab.com/hybrid-drone/paper), the authors did not consider underwater RF transmissions in their prototype design and simply use standard COTS components typically used for DIY UAVs.

echoangle 146 days ago | |

IMU that determines rotation rates and acceleration without vision. A drone can fly and hold attitude with some accuracy without any outside help, it doesn’t need cameras or outside control. Only GPS to counteract drifting but that can be neglected in the very short term.

idiotsecant 146 days ago |

Variable pitch! Waterproof! This thing is awesome. Surely there is different tuning when it's in water vs when it's not, right? How do you detect the transition? Motor currents? This is a really neat project!

nhma 146 days ago | |

In their report (https://gitlab.com/hybrid-drone/paper) the authors mention that they implemented one controller for flying and another for diving. The transition seems to be initiated manually, but they propose a few ways of automatic detection and transition.

tantalor 146 days ago |

> Hybrid drones offer great potential in many industries due to their ability to operate in air and water.

"Hybrid" usually means a combination of features from two different things.

For instance, a car with electric & internal combustion engines.

But here they are using "hybrid" to mean a combination of capabilities. That's different than features.

Also, "hybrid done" already has a meaning:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drone

stinkbeetle 146 days ago | |

Looks to me like it is a hybrid of an underwater drone thing and an aerial drone thing, and that you have a good opportunity to expand that wiki page to include the other meanings of the term.

petermcneeley 146 days ago |

As an undergrad project this is rather impressive. But those motors do not look very water resistant. We all know that that shape and those blades are not very efficient in the water. And as others mention the RF signal probably cuts out at a few meters (probably worse in salt water).

jbay808 146 days ago | |

Definitely impressive as a proof of concept. A lot of the other problems can be solved with iteration. There are some IP67-rated drone motors meant to both fly and run underwater (available from Westmag for example).

There might be less that can be done about the underwater drag, but if it doesn't need to go long distances underwater that's not as much of a problem. For the RF signal, it can either run autonomously underwater, or use a fibre-optic umbilical, or even convert from an umbilical to wireless when it takes to the air.

hermitcrab 146 days ago |

Very impressive. I assume that underwater propulsion uses a lot more energy per meter moved?

trhway 146 days ago | |

that is the thing here. While the project is cool, the drone's underwater drag is very high, while typical such drone of that size is foldable, and thus one can fold it (even if a bit, Star Wars X-wing style) to decrease drag and use say only one or two motors with much greater efficiency as result. Though high speed drone like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PTsHDFMams may be ok without collapsing.

phire 146 days ago | |

But you use spend much less energy fighting gravity.

I’d expect it to have more range underwater than a typical quadcoter has through air. And much longer “flight” time.

But I doubt it gains enough to compete with a fixed wing drone using the same battery.

hermitcrab 146 days ago | | |

>I’d expect it to have more range underwater than a typical quadcoter has through air.

I would expect the opposite, with the higher drag being much more of an issue than gravity. But I would be interested to hear a definitive answer.

ch4s3 146 days ago |

It's interesting how simple this looks, off the shelf parts, and 3D printed components. I'm almost surprised this doesn't already exist after looking at it.

lm28469 146 days ago | |

> I'm almost surprised this doesn't already exist after looking at it.

What's the use case? We have very good dedicated aerial drones and very good dedicated submarine drones. If something is technically possible but no one makes it usually it means it's not that interesting

engineer_22 146 days ago | | |

If your mothership is low-observable/submersible you could park it in a harbor and when time is right unleash a swarm of hybrid aerial underwater drones with mission payload.

This design uses 1 swashplate server plus 1 brushless drive motor for each prop for a total of 8 motors. Designs in Ukraine are now using 1 brushless drive motor to synchronously drive all 4 props and 1 swashplate servo each prop, reducing total number of motors to 5, which might be a natural path of optimization for this type of hybrid aerial underwater?

alexpotato 146 days ago | |

If this what can be done with off the shelf parts and 3D printing, imagine what DARPA and the like have been doing for the past 20 years.

Makes the UFO/UAP stories about "it transitioned from the water to the air and back to the water!!" seem way more plausible.

ch4s3 146 days ago | | |

> imagine what DARPA and the like have been doing for the past 20 years.

People always say this, but anyone I know who's ever worked in one of these companies that contracts for the DoD or DARPA always complains about how behind the market government tech is. Obviously private industry isn't producing competitors to the F35, but for less complicated kit the government doesn't seem to be doing anything super sophisticated. In fact a bunch of people I knew who went to Iraq bought supplemental gear on the private market.

ge96 146 days ago | |

I feel like I've seen some of these before without the variable pitch part

ex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlMDabBfJp0

efskap 146 days ago | | |

You can waterproof regular fpv quads with silicone coating on the pcb. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzUy6Wk86-A

wumms 146 days ago |

I suppose that pool is the ~max RF range under water? Is prop pitch mandatory for underwater use?

t0lo 146 days ago |

Getting closer to the well documented amphibious UAP drone I guess..

bestouff 146 days ago |

The manhunt from a drone becomes more of a nightmare.

trhway 146 days ago | |

in some sense it isn't nightnmare, it is already a reality, just non-uniformly distributed. Sounds like you just haven't watched hours of footage from Ukraine. The drones there - in the 10-30km zone from the frontline - are onmnipresent like birds, just the birds of the killing-humans-on-sight kind (and with IR cameras it is 24x7, at night it is even more effective as you don't see it coming, only hear a slight buzz of the props, while the drone sees a warm human even better at night, like a kind of a flying rattlesnake :).

Unprepared NK soldiers in Ukraine facing drones first time https://youtu.be/9BQKfSHqRDk?t=117

Stevvo 146 days ago |

SciFi becomes reality.

hermitcrab 146 days ago |

Maybe you will be able to use these to defend Greenland?

thatoneengineer 146 days ago |

Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/2128/

Or for the more cynical, replace "search and rescue" with "military covert ops".