Working of Hovercraft

The hovercraft vehicles are the most unseen vehicles. First of all, we will get an idea that the hovercraft works on the same principle of the helicopter. The helicopter puts the air towards the downward direction by itself then it travels on the top or in the air. The helicopter balances the force of the gravity keeping it down with the massive downdraft of air. But the Hovercraft works the much easier way that it uses less far air, it has more efficiency, the engine is small and it consumes less fuel.

The basic principle of the Hovercraft is very simple that an engine it may be diesel or gasoline powers both large central fan, pointing in downward and one or more fans are pointing backward direction. The central fan lifts the hovercraft and holds on the waves and the other fans pushes the craft downward, forward, and in the side directions. The cushion of air under the craft is produced by a rubber skirt. The sidewall hovercraft has the practical skirts to the solid sides, a skirt at the front & back and it can power by silent propellers or the water jet engines, manufacturing them as a noiseless.

How Much Can RC Hovercraft Carry ?

A fan of a specified power will give a certain amount of under the craft. Hence the pressure is calculated as

Pressure = Force / Area

The formula follows that a bigger hovercraft can carry more weight than the smaller hovercraft with a fan of the same size. The inventor of the hovercraft has discovered quickly and the bigger hovercraft’s are more efficient than the smaller hovercraft. In such cases, the load carrying capacity is proportional to the gas cushion. The necessary energy to hold the cushion is proportional to the peripheral dimensions of the cushions. Therefore, for an increase in the size of the vehicle is the lift increases proportionally to the area of the cushions at the same time the energy requirements increase linearly through the periphery of the cushions. Hence the efficiency of the vehicle increases with the plain area of the cushions.

RC Hovercraft using an Android

The RC hovercraft is a nonwheeled vehicle it can float over land & water easily by using high powered fans. The design of hovercraft vehicle is aerodynamic design. In this article, we will discuss the advanced hovercraft using the high RPM motor which is interfaced with the microcontroller(AVR) and by using the android applications. The motor rotates at high RMP that gives to generate the force to make the hover on the surface, hence it reduces the friction to a minimum.

We will use the motor propeller mounted back it to push the hovercraft in the forward direction. In this, we will attach the servomotors to the hovercraft rudder hence it moves in the desired direction. The system works together to hover whereas constantly managing servo as a propeller motor to drive the hovercraft in a preferred direction. The android application is used to control the hovercraft. The android application will send the movement command to the hovercraft and the circuit consists of the Bluetooth device to get the information about the commands. Hence the commands are processed by the microcontroller and it operates the motors in preferred directions by the users.

The following block diagram shows the hovercraft using the android application.

Advantages of RC Hovercraft

• The hovercraft is used for shortcutting routes.
• The hovercraft can travel over any surface
• They can travel in dry water-beds
• There is no collusion with the waste matter or scrape, logs etc.,

Applications of Hovercraft

• Electrical power line patrol & safety.
• It is a remote mining access vehicle
• Coastal civil engineering & bridge constructions
• Fish farming
• Airport bird scaring and in rescue operations.

This article gives the information about the remote controlled hovercraft using android applications. I hope by reading this article you have gained some basic knowledge about the RC hovercraft. If you have any queries regarding this article or about the projects based on the engineering please feel free to comment in the below section. Here is a question for you, what is the function of RC hovercraft?

Photo Credits :

• RC Hovercrafthobbytron
• Working of Hovercraftexplainthatstuff