145results about "Convertible vehicles" patented technology

A combination rotor and wheel assembly for an unmanned vehicle with ground and aerial mobility has a rotor arm adapted to be attached at an inner end thereof to a vehicle body. A rotor is rotatably connected to an outer end of the rotor arm about a rotor axis, and a rotor drive mounted on the rotor arm rotates the rotor such that the rotor exerts an upward lift force on the rotor arm. An open spoked wheel is rotatably connected about the rotor axis independent of the rotor The diameter of the wheel is greater than that of the rotor, and a bottom edge of the wheel is below the rotor. A wheel drive rotates the wheel. Vehicles can have various numbers and orientations of the rotor and wheel assembly to provide aerial and ground mobility.

A road/air vehicle is able to quickly and easily convert between two configurations, air configuration and road configuration, to facilitate practical operation as both an aircraft and as an automobile. In air configuration the craft includes two laterally symmetrically flight surfaces; a smaller forward canard wing, generally horizontally disposed and a larger rearward main wing generally horizontally disposed with fin surfaces, generally vertically disposed, at each tip. Control surfaces on the main wing, the canard wing and the tip fins severally provide roll control, pitch control and yaw control in flight. The wheels/undercarriage are of a laterally symmetrical rectangular pattern, with the lateral distance between the two forward wheels and the two rearward wheels being similar. The forward wheels are steerable for ground operations. A suitable powerplant drives the rear wheels for ground operations. A second suitable powerplant provides direct atmospheric thrust for flight operations. In road configuration all flight surfaces and avionics sensors are folded and stored inside compartments within the body of the craft. Controls to facilitate both ground and flight operations are available for a single operator to perform the functions of both driver in road configuration and pilot in air configuration.

An unmanned vehicle may include a vehicle body that comprises an enclosed hull. The unmanned vehicle may include a propulsion, a ballast control system, a center of gravity system, a pressurization system, a control surface system, a navigation control system, and an on board master control system. The on board master control system may execute local control over operation of the various systems of the unmanned vehicle. The unmanned vehicle may also include a power supply carried by a portion of the vehicle body to provide power to the various systems. The various systems of the unmanned vehicle may be independently operable to support selective operation of the unmanned vehicle in the air, on the surface of the water, and below the surface of the water.

The invention discloses an air-ground amphibious spherical metamorphic robot based on a metamorphic principle. The robot mainly comprises a flying module and a traveling module. The flying module comprises a symmetrical four-connecting bar mechanism driven by a worm and worm wheel motor, and the four-connecting bar mechanism realizes to automatically fold a stand to adapt to different requirements for the robot structure under a spherical un-deformed state, a terrestrial state and an aerial state. The traveling module uses a 8-freedom four-foot robot, the shanks are driven to move through the four-connecting bar mechanism, and arc plates fitting with the shanks partially fit with the lower semi-spherical shell under the un-deformed state so as to form the spherical shape. When preparing to fly, the upper semi-spherical shell gives place to support arms for folding the stand through moving upwardly. After the support arms stretch to the right positions, the upper semi-spherical shell moves downward to restore. A crank block mechanism is used for driving the upper semi-spherical shell. The air-ground amphibious spherical metamorphic robot based on the metamorphic principle is featured with small volume, reasonable structure, simple and beautiful shape, outstanding movement performance, easiness and high efficiency in control, strong anti-interference ability and the like.

Systems and associated methods for planning and control of a fleet of unmanned vehicles in missions that are coordinated temporally and spatially by geo-location, direction, vehicle orientation, altitude above sea level, and depth below sea level. The unmanned vehicles' transit routes may be fully autonomous, semi-autonomous, or under direct operator control using off board control systems. Means are provided for intervention and transit changes during mission execution. Means are provided to collect, centralize and analyze mission data collected on the set of participating unmanned vehicles.

A robust amphibious air vehicle incorporates a fuselage with buoyant stabilizers and wings extending from the fuselage. At least one lift fan is mounted in the fuselage. Movable propulsion units carried by the wings are rotatable through a range of angles adapted for vertical and horizontal flight operations.

The present invention provides a multi-stage tilting and multi-rotor flying car including: a main frame externally shaped like a rectangle and internally partitioned to have a grid structure; a body mounted at a center of the main frame in consideration of balance; a plurality of rotors mounted to the main frame to face upward; a plurality of wheels mounted to the main frame to face downward; body wings provided at opposite sides of the body; and an automatic driving controller provided in the body and controlling the rotors and the wheels, thereby having effects on spending only the minimum necessary flying time for taking off and landing in a narrow area, and improving flight performance three times higher in flight time and flight speed and five times higher in fight distance than a rotary-wing aircraft such as a helicopter while flying in the fixed-wing mode.

One aspect of the invention relates to a building or component kit intended for constructing different variations of vehicles. The kit includes a number of connecting members as well as unique modules; for example, wheel modules, which includes a carrier (6) with elements (17) for holding a wheel or some other kind of running member (7), as well as a number of sockets (12, 13) for receiving connecting members (4), in which sockets the connecting members can be disengageably applied. Another aspect of the invention relates to the wheel module as such.

A vehicle capable of multiple varieties of locomotion having a main body; a plurality of motors and blades providing flying capability; each motor being associated with and powering a blade assembly; two legs extending from opposing sides of the main body creating a ground propulsion system. The ground propulsion system having two legs; each leg connected to a track body at the opposing leg end; each track body comprised of a plurality of drive gears; each track body connected to and retaining a track providing ground propulsion. The vehicle can either drive or fly based on its base structure, in additional to carrying a payload. The payload is carried below the main body of the vehicle and between the tracks or running gear. When the vehicle is in flight, the tracks are able to rotate up into a fly/flight mode to protect the blades during flight.

A receiver hitch-mountable utility cart has a support frame for supporting a payload, a hitch arm rigidly attached to the support frame, the hitch arm shaped to engage a receiver hitch bar of an over-the-road vehicle, a wheelbase assembly with wheels for transporting the cart with the wheels on the ground, and a user-operable translation mechanism connecting the wheelbase to the frame, enabling the frame to be raised and lowered relative to the wheelbase by operation of the translation mechanism, such that the cart, in an uppermost position, may be aligned and connected to the receiver hitch bar of the over-the-road vehicle, and the wheels may then be retracted to carry the cart entirely on the receiver hitch bar.

The invention provides a multifunctional driving system for a flying car, and relates to the field of overall design of flying cars, and the multifunctional driving system is used for switching between a car driving mode and an airplane driving mode in airplane and car driving processes. According to the multifunctional driving system for the flying car provided by the invention, a multifunctional steering wheel scheme is utilized, so that a driver can operate a single steering wheel by virtue of a mode switching switch while meeting flying pitching, roll-over operating/road surface driving direction control requirements, thereby avoiding operation complexity of two sets of independent operation systems and increasing a structural utilization rate; and meanwhile, the multifunctional driving system can meet operation habits of a novel traffic tool better.

The invention relates to a triphibian omnibearing moving mechanism, and belongs to the technical field of moving robot engineering. The triphibian omnibearing moving mechanism comprises a box body, four groups of wheel trains and driving mechanisms arranged relative to each wheel train, wherein each driving mechanism comprises a motor, a transmission mechanism and a clutch mechanism which are arranged in the box body and a helicopter rotor mechanism arranged at the top end of the box body; the motor is connected with the transmission mechanism; the output end of the transmission mechanism is respectively connected with the wheel trains and the helicopter rotor mechanism; the clutch mechanism connected with an electromagnet is arranged on the transmission mechanism, and a power supply is connected to the electromagnet; and during operation, the clutch mechanism is matched with the wheel train connecting end of the transmission mechanism or the connecting end of the helicopter rotor mechanism. The triphibian omnibearing moving mechanism has the strong adaptability. Different forms of power output is selected correspondingly according to different environments in which the triphibian omnibearing moving mechanism is positioned in the using process, so that the mechanism can adapt to the wider environment and can be used within the larger range. By the triphibian omnibearing moving mechanism, motion output can be converted into air from ground and water surfaces or converted into the ground and the water surfaces from the air conveniently through regulation.

The invention provides a high speed railway safety detection system based on an air-rail dual-purpose unmanned plane. The system comprises an unmanned plane, a remote monitoring center, an earth station, and a wireless communication module. The unmanned plane comprises rotation blades for providing flying power and propellant propellers for driving the unmanned plane to move along a rail. The earth station is used to set a flying route for the unmanned plane and control the flying mode and navigation mode of the unmanned plane in the orbit. The remote monitoring center is used to monitor the flying state of the unmanned plane, analyze the detection information, and quickly respond to the accidents during the driving process. Two routing inspection modes (namely flying in the air and moving along a rail) are adopted. Two work modes can be flexibly arranged or switched according to the actual needs. The problems of a conventional ground routing inspection mode such as high cost, bad flexibility, occupied space for normal driving, and the like, are solved.

The invention relates to an airfoil transformation mechanism of a submarine aircraft. A motor is connected in a fuselage, the motor is connected with a screw rod, the screw rod is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the fuselage at the center of the fuselage, a sliding block is connected to the screw rod, the inner section of a back beam of airfoils is in rigid connection with the sliding block, the inner section of the back beam of the airfoils is connected with the outer section of the back beam of the airfoils through a rotating shaft, a front beam of the airfoils is parallel to the back beam of the airfoils, the inner section of the front beam of the airfoils is connected with the wall of the fuselage, and the outer end part of the front beam of the airfoils and the outer end part of the back beam of the airfoils are connected through a front half section wing rib and a back half section wing rib. The airfoil transformation mechanism of the submarine aircraft has the technical effects that symmetrical wing-shaped hydrofoils arranged below the fuselage can produce downward lifting force during submerging, thereby ensuring the submerging requirement of the submarine aircraft and playing a role like a skid type landing gear when the submarine aircraft takes off from the water surface.

The invention provides a power coupling device of a multifunctional vehicle. The power coupling device can simultaneously or respectively drive a vehicle driving wheel, a propeller and a vertical power mechanism so as to realize an integrated power system of an amphibious vehicle. A bevel gear 2 is used as the input end of the power system, a bevel gear 6 drives the propeller of the multifunctional vehicle to realize overwater or underwater running of the vehicle, and meanwhile, a clutch 7 can ensure power interruption and output of the propeller; a bevel gear 3 drives the driving wheel of the amphibious vehicle so as to realize land running of the vehicle, a clutch 5 can ensure power interruption and output of the driving wheel, and the bevel gear 6 can simultaneously drive a vertical power mechanism 5 to realize ascending and diving of the vehicle in the water; and meanwhile, the power output can drive rotor wings, the propeller and the like so as to realize air flying of the vehicle.