Sherbrooke University Water-Air VEhicle

SUWAVE (Sherbrooke University Water-Air VEhicle) is a fixed-wing drone capable of lake-hopping (fly from lake to lake), recharging and then repeating the process all over again. 

Sherbrooke University Water-Air VEhicle

Fixed wing Aquatic drone
The wings of the fixed-wing drones provide the lift thus making it use energy only to move forward and not to hold themselves up in the air. So, these types of drones are much more energy efficient. For this reason, they are able to cover longer distances, map much larger areas, and loiter for long times monitoring their point of interest. The launching and landing of the fixed-wing drones are difficult and challenging. The researchers from the University of Sherbrooke in Canada solved the issues by making the drone AQUATIC!. The water 0ffers reliably flat and cushion like surface to take off and land. SUWAVE vertically takes off from lake, flies, crash lands in them, floats in the water, recharges with solar power, and takes off again.

Vertical takeoff

The Sequence of Vertical Take-off 
Resembling that of Mallard Duck

The vertical take-off is a newly proposed idea and it is inspired from the taking off of mallard duck. To take off, the drone releases a small latch, and the center section of its body (which contains the battery at the back and the motor at the front) is free to pivot around the front of the wing. Since the battery is towards the back, the center section sinks, which causes the motor and prop to point up into the air. When the motor fires up, the drone is lifted out of the water and into the air, and the center section swings back into alignment with the wing and latches in tightly. Besides the latch, the takeoff technique is entirely passive, without the need for any kind of sensors or actuators, and it can also be used to flip the aircraft over if necessary.

Landing and Recharging

The approach to landing is simple. SUWAVE can use either dive land or pitch up and stall or roll maneuver to crash land face first in the nearest lake. It looks violent, but the 584-gram drone is only being subjected to about 15 g’s of deceleration, which is well within what it’s built to handle. This drone is waterproof and can float. SUWAVE is equipped with solar cells on its upper wing surfaces so that it can float in the lake and recharge its batteries.

Applications
SUWAVE could be used to travel long distances, or in applications like wildfire monitoring, search and rescue or water sampling, in future with solar panels and a controller.