The Aquanaut was designed for the Cessna and Office of Naval Research's Design Build Fly competition. The 2003/2004 mission requires an unmanned aerial vehicle be developed which is capable of performing two missions. It is, in essence, a firefighting airplane. The UAV must carrying and dump 4 liters of water while inflight. The other mission is simply a time trial of 4 laps.
Project Team
Project Lead:
Anthony Eng
Pilot and Consultant:
Tony Naccarato
Adam Vogel
Andre Gondouin
Cathy Leong
Diana Chou
Douglas Cruz
Karim Salha
Kristy Darlymple
Michael Wu
Richard Yau
Ronny Breslavsky
Saul Rios
Soo Jung Hur
Tetsuya Hoshino
Zach Siebers
Photographs
Pilot Tony Naccarato verifying all control systems before a test flight.
The Aquanaut used a simple ball valve turned directly by a heavy torque servo. This allowed us to control the flow of the water in the payload tank. The shown mechanism was connected to a foot long tube which increased the speed of deployment. Contest rules restricted the outlet diameter to 1/2 inch. Static testing demonstrated a full 4 liter deployment time in 16 seconds.
