This homebuilt drone flies using a single propeller mounted above a finned body, rather than the multiple rotors commonly seen on small drones.

Its maker, jyjblrd, has published modified flight-controller and motor-controller firmware, along with 3D design files for the body and propeller parts, on GitHub.

AeRove is a compact drone that turns the guards surrounding its propellers in flight into wheels after landing, allowing it to roll along pipelines. It normally travels on the pipe and takes off only when it needs to hop over an obstacle.

A spring-loaded mechanism switches between flight and ground configurations in about 200 milliseconds. The researchers report roughly 14 times lower current draw while rolling than during continuous flight, and demonstrated straight and curved traversal, obstacle hopping, and simulated leak-marker detection on a 51 cm steel pipe. It was developed by NJIT researchers Caleb Polillio and Petras Swissler.