TJ-FlyingFish Drone Autonomously Swims Underwater and Flies

A new Chinese drone, the TJ-FlyingFish, is gaining attention as it looks like something straight out of a Hollywood movie.  It is a transformer robot capable of autonomously navigating underwater as an uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) and flying in the air as a quadcopter. The drone was developed by a team of scientists from China's Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Tongji University, and the Unmanned Systems Research Group at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

It weighs 3.6 pounds, can hover in the air for 6 minutes and travel underwater at 6.5 feet per second. Some missions for the technology could include taking aerial and aquatic surveys, remote sensing, and search-and-rescue operations. The technology was developed by China's Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Tongji University, and the Unmanned Systems Research Group at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Professor Ben Chen from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his colleagues will be presenting a paper on their research on the drone at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in London this May. Watch a video at the link. Story and photos courtesy of Kurt Knutsson, CyberGuy Report, Fox News.

Our thanks to CDR David Place (USN/Ret), davidplace47[at]gmail[dot]com, and Robin E. Alexander, President ATC, alexander technical[at]gmail[dot]com, for their assistance with this report, the background for which appeared in their # 23 - 3 - 3 MARCH 2023 edition of the UNMANNED SYSTEMS NEWS (USN).

David distributes the USN, a free, comprehensive newsletter in PDF format every week or two, as well as serial news flashes, from which this NREF news update was sourced. To be included in his distribution, simply send a subscribe request to davidplace47[at]gmail[dot]com.