Newest drone to fly, swim and drive during missions

Move over, lightweight flying robots! The drone of the future is currently being developed at a government lab, and if all goes as planned it will do much more than just soar through the sky on its own.

While the United States continues to consider the merits behind its overseas weaponized drone program and efforts to allow surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles sail through domestic airspace, Sandia National Laboratories has released a video showing off a conceptual design meant to make the traditional UAV look like a thing of the past.

Sandia’s “Multi-Modal Vehicle Concept” is still being ironed out, but ideally scientists hope that they’ll be able to soon deploy an unmanned craft capable of flying, swimming, driving and even hopping like a frog across any type of terrain or obstacle it may encounter.

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