Students 3D print drone that can swim underwater and fly through the air — ‘variable-pitch propeller system’ paves way for amphibious breakthrough

We’ve covered all sorts of amazing drones here at Tom’s Hardware — most of them custom-designed with amazing finesse. Today is the first time we’ve ever covered a drone quite like this. Students Andrei Copaci, Pawel Kowalczyk, Krzysztof Sierocki, and Mikolaj Dzwigalo from Denmark’s Aalborg University have 3D printed a custom drone that is not only capable of flight but can also be piloted underwater.

These features aren’t independent options. Rather, the drone seamlessly jumps between flight and aquatic mode as needed. The duo released a video showing off what it’s capable of, and in it, we see the drone flying above a pool before crashing into the water’s surface. It then moves about the pool before reemerging to fly in the air again.

This project, while demonstrating incredible capabilities, is still in early concept stages. This project is a one-off, so don’t expect to buy one of these anytime soon. However, this is an amazing proof-of-concept that shows how easy it is for makers to create something so innovative with readily available tools and hardware.

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The drone is able to pull off the incredible transition using what the team calls a “variable-pitch propeller system”. In short, this means that the propeller blades automatically adjust to optimize for whatever environment they’re operating in—water vs air. When flying through the air, the propeller blades are angled with a higher pitch.