Do you prefer aerial drones or ground-based drones? What if there is a vehicle that combines the two aspects in one? The HUUVER, the Hybrid UAV-UGV for Efficient Relocation of Vessels, is being developed via a European Union project.
The leader of the project is Poland’s Cervi Robotics/Dronehub with other partners. Including LUT University (Finland), Rectangle (Poland), NTT Data (Spain), Gina Software (Czech Republic), Bladescape, and Brimatech Services (Austria).
As for its prototype, The HUUVER measures 137 cm long, 84 cm wide, 56 cm high, and 23 kg (51 lb) weight.
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For the ground missions, the tank-like drone uses its pair of linked treads. It would run for up to 10 hours per charge of its lithium battery. And when it needs to fly, the HUUVER fires up its eight horizontal propellers, which sit aligned with the treads. But it only can fly for 20 minutes.
You can either fly your drone remotely, using output from its gimbal-mounted Sony 4K optical and FLIR thermal imaging cameras. Or you can put the HUUVER on the autonomous mode, which uses a Galileo satellite positioning system – a Velodyne Puck LITE LiDAR sensor to help it avoid obstacles.
The information about when the vehicle will be ready is not available for now. However, the main orientation for this drone will likely be for industrial, military, and search-and-rescue usage.