Dipper: A Dynamically Transitioning Aerial-Aquatic Unmanned Vehicle

Dipper is an aerial-aquatic hybrid vehicle, capable of controlled motion in air and underwater. Dipper is a lightweight fixed-wind UAV with actively swept wings that achieves dynamic transitions between the two media. The vehicle has only one main propulsion motor, and uses a novel clutch system to engage either the front tractor propeller for flight in air, or the rear ship’s screw propeller for underwater propulsion. More details can be found on our project page at This is video is associated with the following publication: F Rockenbauer, S Jeger, L Beltran, M Berger, M Harms, N Kaufmann, M Rauch, M Reinders, N Lawrance, T Stastny, R Siegwart. Dipper: A Dynamically Transitioning Aerial-Aquatic Unmanned Vehicle. Robotics: Science and Systems, 2021. Link to paper: