Design and Development of a Triphibious Drone

The development of hybrid drones—unmanned vehicles capable of operating across air, land, and water—present significant potential for the future of unmanned systems. However, integrating multiple propulsion systems within a single platform introduces technical challenges, affecting efficiency, structural complexity, and practicality. As a result, more advanced configurations that can drive fly and swim, such as triphibious drones, remain significantly underexplored. This thesis presents a comprehensive literature review and proposes a systematic classification framework to identify and compare existing hybrid drone designs. The analysis reveals a lack of standardised categorisation in the field and a notable under-representation of triphibious systems. Building on these insights, the thesis introduces a novel triphibious drone design that integrates an optimised flight propulsion system with a multifunctional land–water propulsion mechanism. Additionally, it initiates the development of bio-inspired perching capabilities, enabling the drone to attach to vertical surfaces—extending functionality beyond current multimodal UAV capabilities. The findings contribute to multimodal UAV research by advancing triphibious mobility and demonstrating novel bio-inspired adaptations. These developments have promising implications for applications in search and rescue, environmental monitoring, surveillance, and infrastructure inspection.