Oakland University's Embedded Systems Research Laboratory has been developing a drone that can fly, float on water, or dive under the surface and swim around.
While in the floating position, Loon Copter can tilt 90 degrees downward by filling its buoyancy chambers with water on one side of the drone, allowing its rotors to function more efficiently underwater. While quadcopters that double as subaquatic robots have been around, this one's completely untethered, which makes it more free to swim around and explore—though both the Loon and other aerial/aquatic drones have some limits on how deep they can dive.
Unfortunately, without cable means the Loon can't live stream any video or send back any photos in real time; it can only record and be played back later. For now. While we wait for that technology, however, we're content to just marvel at how quickly unmanned vehicles are evolving.
Source: Engadget
