1780results about "Amphibious vehicles" patented technology

A chassis clings to a ship hull or other ferrous surface by a magnet that moves toward or away from the surface to adjust the magnet air gap and thus the attractive force. The magnet(s) can be the only clinging force or used with other sources such as a suction chamber or fluid jet drive. An internal magnet on a crank mechanism can pivot around a wheel rotation axis inside a wheel body having a non-ferrous traction surface or tire. The magnet gap is least at an angle perpendicular to the surface on which the wheel rests, and larger at an angle oblique to that, for varying the attractive force to two or more levels. The vehicle can be an autonomous hull maintenance device with sensors, controllers and actuators to sense, measure and clean away fouling.

Devices for navigating in a fluid medium having a solid boundary include a vehicle body and a fin attached to the vehicle body. The fin is configured to oscillate relative to the body such that interaction between the fin and the fluid medium produces propulsive forces that propel the vehicle body in a desired direction in the fluid medium. The fin is also configured to rotate relative to the body along a transverse axis such that engagement between the fin and the solid boundary propels the vehicle body in a desired direction on the solid boundary.

A multi-modal vehicle (“MMV”) 20a-20d. The MMV 20a-20d includes a fuselage 22 and a chassis 26 supporting at least three wheels 44 having deployed and stowed states. Extending away from the fuselage 22 is a canard wing system 28 and a main wing system 30. The main wing system 30 includes an inboard portion 134 and an outboard portion 132. The inboard portion 134 is pivotally connected to the fuselage 22; the outboard portion 132 is pivotally connected to the inboard portion 134. The MMV 20a-20d further includes a vertical thrust system 32 comprising a pair of ducted fans 100 that are incorporated into the fuselage 22, and a dual-use thrust system 34 that is configured to transition between a first position for supplying vertical thrust and a second position for supplying a horizontal thrust. A controller 42 is configured to control the MMV operations, reconfigurations, or transitions.

The methods and apparatuses of the present invention provides for powering and maneuvering (forward, reverse and steering) systems for amphibious vehicle, marine vessel or ground vehicle operation and control. An improved propulsion system may incorporate the use of electric motors combined with impellers which use positive and negative magnetic torque applications and allows for new control strategies when used in water or on the ground. More precise control of the motoring and steering forces is provided which is suitable for use in a variety of amphibious, marine vessels or ground vehicle applications. Various types of electric drive motor/generators may be incorporated for use therein. Intelligent motion control systems may provide for improved vehicle control that can provide motive force and braking force in a precisely controlled manner that significantly improves performance and has faster control dynamics incorporating a fully integrated electrical braking and maneuvering system.

An amphibious vehicle for traversing a body of water or solid terrain such as a layer of ice floating atop the body of water. The vehicle includes a floatable boat hull having an elongate aperture there-through, and a snowmobile for traveling over the solid terrain received in the opening and sealed to the hull in water impervious relation. The snowmobile includes an endless drive track for supporting the hull in spaced relation with solid terrain being traversed and for rearwardly propelling water in the body of water to forwardly propel the vehicle over solid terrain or through the water, and a pair of skis which support the front of the hull in spaced relation with the solid terrain being traversed and include upturned forward ends mounting upstanding rudders for steering the boat hull as the vehicle traverses a body of water. The hull includes upwardly extending, downwardly opening pockets for receiving the front upturned ends of the skis and stabilizing arms which are coupled between the frame and the skis. Upwardly inclined guides are provided on the underside of the hull for upwardly guiding the skis out of the water onto the ice floating on the water as the vehicle exits the water and moves onto the ice.

An amphibious recreational vehicle (motorhome, trailer, SUV, and the like) of conventional RV height, width, and length restricted dimensions necessary to travel on highways and roads, and which upon entering the water, the bottom of the vehicle expands outwardly and upwardly to form a fast planing, wide-beam, ground effects cathedral type double-tunnel hull. The hull makes use of a dynamic air cushion to augment the planing of the hulls, owing to the ground effect created by compression of the ram air stream (and water vapor) rushing through the two tapered tunnels separating the three hulls. The wheels of the vehicle are simultaneously raised out of the water to eliminate parasite drag. The resultant hull is substantially wider than the cabin, providing substantial ocean-going stability for the craft. The folded elements incorporated within the cabin rooftop, raise upward to form a traditional yacht flying bridge, complete with a windshield, steering station, seating, mast, and safety rails. The resultant watercraft closely approximates the off-shore speed, seaworthiness, performance, stability, cabin space, main deck space, and elevated flying bridge deck attributes of conventional yachts. And when on land, the craft is a fully functioning traditional recreational vehicle suited for fast highway travel, driving about towns, staying in RV parks, and camping in the wilderness. This amphibious recreational vehicle is an interrelated component divided from the inventor's previous Comprehensive Vehicle Construction And Hybrid Electric Drive System application.

The invention relates to a robot mechanism, in particular to an amphibious snake-like robot which comprises a plurality of modules; all the modules can be connected in a relative rotating way; one of every two adjacent modules can horizontal deflect and pronely swing relative to the other. The robot not only can move on the land but also can move in water, and is not restricted by environmental factors; in the land environment, the robot can realize stable movement when landing on single wing or double wings; when in water, the robot can move no matter the wings are in any directions; each module is provided with three freedom degrees, and can move flexibly; waterproof protective covers are arranged among the modules, so that the sealing performance is good and water does not enter the modules; and a reverse plate is fixedly connected with a connecting plate through a step-type cone structure, thereby realizing the freedom degree that the reverse plate can rotate around the center.

Vehicle suspension having a control arm pivotally mounted to vehicle body. Wheel support is pivotally mounted to the control arm. A hydraulic strut is pivotally mounted to body at trunnion mount. The wheel may be protracted to be placed vertically on the road surface or retracted at an angle, for example to allow good marine performance in an amphibious vehicle. Strut may be extended or retracted by hydraulic fluid pumped through ports and may also be used for wheel springing and damping. As trunnion mount is part way up the strut, the strut can pivot out of the way of the retracing wheel. A second control arm may also be fitted; this may be part of a double wishbone wheel suspension.

The invention discloses an amphibious robot with a transformable structure. According to the amphibious robot, a six-foot transformable structure is adopted, so that the movement mode of the robot is flexible and variable, the functions of wheeled quick movement, bionic crawling movement and water surface navigation movement are achieved, and the three kinds of functions are respectively applicable to flat pavement, rugged pavement and water surface navigation conditions; the environmental adaptability of the amphibious robot is strong, smooth transition in water and land environments is realized, the requirements of the robot on multi-movement-mode continuous transformation for land movement and water surface movement in an amphibious environment are met, and the rapidity and coordination of movement of the robot are guaranteed; the amphibious robot adopts an embedded propeller wheel, so that the problem of power conversion of the robot in a land-to-water-surface switching process is solved, propeller blades can be effectively protected in land movement, power can be provided for water movement of the robot, the additionally arranging of additional underwater propulsion equipment is avoided, and sustained and stable work in water and land transformation media is realized.

An amphibious vehicle achieves a stable ride, maneuverability, and high speed. The vehicle includes a hull having a “V” center portion with outboard sponsons. The sponsons reside between the front wheel wells and the rear wheels wells for improving lift and transition to planing. Shallow tunnels begin in rear portions of the front wheel wells and taper into the sponsons to release water trapped in the wheel wells. Inward facing turning edges also reside between the front and rear wheel wells and improve in-water handling. Wheels are retractable by pneumatic cylinders in parallel with air shock absorbers and suspension cutout in the hull allow the suspension to lower through the hull. Flaps reside under suspension members and rise to cover the suspension cutouts when the wheels are retractable when the wheels are raised to reduce drag. A Morse cable couple a rack and pinion unit to a jet drive.

Various embodiments of reduced-size vehicles such as all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and utility vehicles (UVs) are disclosed herein. In at least some embodiments, the vehicles include frames that are wider near the front and rear sections of the vehicles than within the mid-sections of the vehicles. This, in combination with the use of shock-absorbers that are substantially vertically oriented, allows for the opening-up of large interior cavities within the front and rear sections of the vehicles within which can be positioned large front and rear internal compartments that can provide storage/carrying capacity as well as added buoyancy for the vehicle, among other things. Also, in at least some embodiments, the vehicles can include special cooling and/or exhaust systems having components that are positioned substantially within the mid-sections of the vehicles, thus further increasing the amounts of space available for the cavities/compartments within the front and rear sections of the vehicles.

The invention provides a multimodal amphibious bio-robot, which comprises a head, a replaceable wheel paddle/flipper mechanism, a propelling unit and a caudal peduncle compound drive mechanism. In water, the propelling unit and the caudal peduncle compound drive mechanism oscillate back and forth to propel by imitating a fish in the plane, and a rotating mechanism rotates the propelling unit and the caudal peduncle compound drive mechanism for 90 degrees, and switches the moving mode of propelling by imitating a fish into that of swimming by imitating a dolphin; and the flipper mechanism assists the tail propelling to accomplish actions of moving forward, moving backward, turning and pitching, and the paddle mechanism assists the robot turning. On land, the flipper mechanism rotates continuously to make the robot creep on the ground, imitates the movement of a wheel mechanism when rotating continuously, thereby the robot improves the speed of the movement, has obstacle-climbing capability, and a driven wheel reduces the resistance of the movement on the land. The robot can induce the own environment in real time by two liquid level sensors arranged at the head and the propelling unit respectively; and when the land and water environments are changed, according to the information of the liquid level sensors, a main control panel uses corresponding movement policies to accomplish the intelligent switching between the modes of moving on the land and in the water.

A hydraulic suspension strut (30) has a first on-off valve (58) connecting the first and second chambers (42 and 44), and a second on-off valve (62) connected to chamber (42) only. Suspension arm (3) of wheel (1) can be retracted beyond normal road travel, or protracted to road travel mode, by use of pump (9) and valves (58 and 62). The space in the strut above port (56) may be used as a hydraulic bump stop. An accumulator (50) may be included, as a hydraulic spring. Alternatively, strut (70) (FIG. 6; note alternative accumulator position) allows suspension to be raised above normal road travel. Strut (100) (FIG. 8) may be operated in roadgoing, raised, or retracted mode. These struts may be applied to reconfigurable suspensions; particularly for amphibious vehicles, which may require wheels to be withdrawn above the hull water line to reduce drag on water, particularly during cornering.

An all-terrain vehicle equipped for quick exchange of its functional components and aid units includes a frame having a mounting platform which includes a plurality of spatially positioned open surfaces, a functional unit having a quick release connector adapted to connect to the functional unit to a first part of the mounting platform, and wherein the frame is made of a polymer-matrix and metal-matrix composite.

The invention adopts a large-diameter main culvert coaxial counter-rotating dual-rotor or a fan body to bear the main hoisting force, wherein multiple small-diameter auxiliary culvert rotors or fans are horizontally and symmetrically arranged at the periphery of the dual-rotor or the fan body; connecting arms of the rotors or fans can stretch and contract, twist and swing to carry out four degree-of-freedom actions, bear the auxiliary hoisting force, carry out direction control and serve as vertex prevention rings; a main side spout and a plasma energy wave generator vertex prevention ring are arranged on a main culvert; and a variable inertia system is arranged on the main rotors to realize the ability of preventing turbulent flow from changing into twisting wind. The slurry and flood current overhead-hoisting rescue method is competent for the overhead-hoisting rescue mission and can be combined with the slurry and flood current overhead-hoisting rescue amphibious medical ambulance to constitute a special overhead-hoisting rescue amphibious vehicle. Slurry current propellers such as an extension-type swing conical-head spiral front wing long roller floating type or gyro helix front wing floating head type, a crushing roller front wing floating type and a herringbone one-sided jagged-grain hub telescopic front wing crushing roller tire boosters are arranged at the four corners of a machine frame of the amphibious medical ambulance, so that the amphibious medical ambulance has the capability of floating and driving in the slurry current, and the design method of the slurry flood current special rescue method and the amphibious medical ambulance is solved.

An amphibious vehicle that may be driven directly between land and water includes a vehicle with an opposed pair of flotation side hulls and a rear hull. The side hulls are movable between a stowed position above the vehicle and a lowered deployed position outboard thereof. Each side hull is mounted by arm assemblies including an upright bracket fixed to the vehicle and an arm pivotally connected to the bracket that can be extended or retracted linearly by actuators to raise and lower the side hulls. A locking mechanism prevents the extended side hulls from moving laterally but allows vertical adjustment thereof. The side hulls may be horizontally adjusted between compact contracted and extended protracted positions. The rear hull assembly is pivotally mounted to the back of vehicle permitting raising and lowering thereof and includes jet drives providing propulsion for water operation.

The invention discloses an air-ground amphibious vehicle. The air-ground amphibious vehicle comprises a vehicle body base body, a power mechanism, a transmission mechanism and a drive assembly. The power of the power mechanism drives the drive assembly through transmission of the transmission mechanism. The drive assembly is arranged on the vehicle body base body in a transformation mode to overcome the air resistance and the gravity of the vehicle body base body so that the vehicle can fly in air or overcome the ground friction so that the vehicle can be driven on the road surface. The air-ground amphibious vehicle has the advantages that a flying propeller and a driving assembly are combined into a transformable wheel wing assembly, during road surface driving, power drives the power driving assembly to move at a low speed; during flying in the air, the wheel wing assembly is transformed through a steering engine, the rotating plane of the flying propeller is located in a horizontal plane, power is transmitted to the flying propeller through the transmission mechanism so that the flying propeller can rotate at a high speed to provide lift force.

A control system for a robotic device maneuverable in at least a liquid medium, the system having at least one visual sensor retrieving an image of the device's environment, an image analyzing module receiving the image, determining a presence of an object of a given type therein and analyzing at least one property of the object, a motion calculator determining a desired motion of the device based on the property, and a controller operating a propulsion system of the device to obtain the desired motion. Also, a legged robotic device having a control system including at least one sensor providing data about an environment of the device, the control system using sensor data to determine a desired motion of the device, determining a corresponding required leg motion of each of the legs to produce the desired motion and actuating the legs in accordance with the corresponding required leg motion.

The invention discloses a wheel storing device of amphibious vehicles which belongs to the field of the storing devices of vehicle wheels. The device is an independent suspension fork with double cross arms and comprises a wheel assembly (1), an external universal driving assembly (2), a master pin (3), a first spherical hinge (4), an upper cross arm (5), a vehicle frame (6), an oscillating damper (7), a coil spring (8), sliding blocks (9), a connecting rod of a sliding block (10), a guide rail (11), a piston rod (12), a hydraulic cylinder (13), a crank connecting rod (14), braces (15), a compensating gear (16), an internal universal driving assembly (17), a driving shaft (18), a transverse stabilizer rod (19), a lower cross arm (20) and an upright post of the stabilizer rod (21). Compared with the prior art, the device has small occupying area, simple structure and flexible reaction, and is applicable to the amphibious vehicle wheels which can be used both in water and in land.