News: GPS Guided Pilotless UAV Float Plane

University of Michigan engineers have developed a new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that can land and takeoff on the water. The project was inspired after looking at real flying fish as well as sea birds. The UAV being called the "Flying Fish" has a 7-foot wingspan and is electric powered. The project has been funded by the DOD's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and designed as "an autonomous buoy for persistent surveillance in the open ocean." The first sea trials have been successful. Now, the researchers want to improve the possibilities of their Flying Fish. In particular, they want to use the energy from sun, wind, and waves during its surveillance missions.

The vehicle is a collaborative effort with faculty from the MHL, Aerospace Engineering and EECS Departments, and has given us the opportunity to pull together a great team. The idea of this autonomous vehicle is that it quietly drifts to the edge of its watch circle, harnessing and harvesting energy from sun, wind, and waves as it drifts. Once it reaches the edge, it takes off like a seabird and flies to the other side of the circle where it autonomously lands and begins the drift cycle again. For a small vehicle like this, most waves look like those in the "the perfect storm." By flying over them they minimize energy used in transit, maintain a long-term energy balance (i.e. no refueling required), and give more time for sensor operations without noise from the vehicle. The team envisions fleets of these vehicles deployed for a variety of environmental monitoring applications.

See the link below for a video of this craft in action.

Source Non-Mobile: http://www.engin.umich.edu/dept/name/facilities/mhl/projects/flying_fish.html
Video Non-Mobile: http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2007/Dec07/flyingfish

Tags: Airplanes, Flying, Videos
Technorati Tags: Airplanes, Flying, Videos