Geoff Hatton, a British engineer that previously worked on hovercraft designs, has designed an unmanned aerial vehicle that has attracted the interest of the US military and its very healthy budget allocation.
The design is based around the melding of a hovercraft with a helicopter, and manages to take some of the best characteristics of each. For one thing, the saucer shaped UAV can fly high in the air (unlike a hovercraft) but also doesn't have a large rotor blade (unlike a helicopter.)
The concept takes advantage of the "coanda effect" -- which says that a fluid will tend to stay attached to a convex surface -- with control surfaces at the base of the UFO-like vehicle used to alter the course of the UAV.
One of the main reasons that the military is interested is that the design means there's much less of a problem with collisions because the rotor isn't as big or as exposed on other reconnaissance vehicles, although Geoff points out that there are "a lot of prospects besides the military": because civilians can be klutzes when it comes to unmanned aerial vehicles too.
The 68-year-old has won a contract with the US government for his 3ft-wide contraption, a cross between a hovercraft and a helicopter. It is being considered for surveillance sorties.
"Unlike a helicopter, though, this is aerodynamically neutral and you can bump into walls and not smash the rotor,' said the inventor. "And, unlike a hovercraft, you can fly it as high as you want."
The dome-shaped object is powered by an electricity-driven propeller on top that pushes air over the outer surfaces, and has controllable flaps.
The device, which was rejected by the Ministry of Defence, was funded partly by a £43,000 development grant from the Department of Trade and Industry five years ago.
The Americans are convinced that it has potential.
"It's a unique approach which lends itself to a surveillance platform,' said Sal Gomez, of the US army's International Co-operative Programs centre. "It could be useful in urban areas because if it bumped into walls it could recover. This is just the earliest of days, like the Wright Brothers."
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