Russian engineers from Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) are developing a wing-in-ground effect vehicle supported by artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Solar panels cover the surface of the craft for unlimited power while the sun is out. The team plans to use the ‘Storm-600’ wing-in-ground-effect vehicle as a mobile platform for recharging underwater and aerial drones.
Flying boats can be useful for many purposes, including patrolling water areas, conducting sea-based search and rescue operations, and cargo delivery.
Alexei Maistro, the head of the project, said, “The device literally floats above the water. There is a screen effect when an aerodynamic cushion is created under the wing of the aircraft. Our wing-in-ground-effect vehicle has long wings; thus, it moves along the air cushion itself. On the physics lessons at school, the experiment is demonstrated when a tennis ball hangs in the stream of the air from the vacuum cleaner: it doesn’t fall down and doesn’t fly up. The same principle is used here.”
Photovoltaic cells connected to storage devices that can distribute energy will be installed on the hull and wings of the craft to power the boat along the water continuously.
Maistro added, “We installed a laser radar (lidar) on the boat to train the wing-in-ground-effect vehicle to recognize the obstacles and avoid them. And the radio radar was also added to increase the range of the vision system to 30 miles.”
The ‘Storm-600’ flying boat reaches top speeds of 200 km/h, but the team plans to increase that by at least another 100 km/h. The solar-powered craft is lighter due to the lack of fuel tanks, and since an AI system powers the boat, there is no weight of a pilot. A more advanced take on the same wing-in-ground-effect concept, REGENT’s Viceroy seaglider, is now preparing for its first crewed flight with 12 passengers at 180 mph.
