Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter by Chen Xu is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 Silver A' Design Award in Futuristic Design Competition Category.
SilverFuturistic· 2025
Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter
by Chen Xu
Client: Beihang University
Silver A' Design Award Winner in Futuristic Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #170590The Design
About Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter
Skybridge is an unmanned helicopter designed for cargo delivery from ships to islands without ports. The airframe follows the streamlined forms of marine organisms to reduce drag and energy use. The fuselage panels are molded in one piece from composite materials, and the internal structure uses carbon fiber for a 32 percent weight reduction. A multi-hook suspension and undercarriage winches allow a payload of 260 kilograms at altitudes up to 6,000 meters and in winds of 12 meters per second. Operators on a support vessel control the helicopter remotely, guided by onboard cameras and sensors.
The Recognition
About the Silver A' Design Award
Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.
Where to Get It
Advanced Transportation and Product Design Services
We transform complex engineering challenges into elegant solutions through biomimetic design principles. Our expertise spans aerospace, transportation, and industrial products, creating innovations that bridge technological capability with human needs. Winner of the international A' Design Award.
Discuss Your ProjectBehind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Designed for cargo delivery to portless islands, this helicopter overcomes geographical barriers. Its biomechanically optimized airframe, multi-hook suspension, and intelligent undercarriage winches achieve a 260kg payload capacity—operating reliably at 6,000m altitude and 12m/s winds, redefining aerial logistics for extreme environments.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- with rotor: 3786X3600X1330mm
without rotor:2660X1054X950mm - Tags
- Civil Drone, Product Design, Remotely Piloted Aircraft, Unmanned Helicopter, Maritime Transport
- Production Technology
- The manufacturing process integrates the modular assembly concept of the naval industry, and adopts composite materials to realize one-piece molding of the fuselage covering parts. The internal structure uses carbon fiber materials to achieve a 32% breakthrough in lightweight, which significantly improves the carrying efficiency. The streamlined aerodynamic design is modeled after marine life, which ensures the structural strength and effectively reduces the operational energy consumption.
- Design Challenge
- Balancing the societal need for efficient island resupply with minimizing environmental impact and complying with UAV regulations proved challenging. Developing a safe, reliable unmanned system with the required payload and capture capabilities required extensive research and design iterations.
- Research
- This design analyzes the efficient movement mechanism of marine organisms through bionic methods, focusing on the hydrodynamic curves and their energy transfer modes when fish swim. Combined with computational fluid dynamics simulation and 3D scanning modeling technology, the bio-evolutionary advantages of marine organisms, such as drag-reducing characteristics, are transformed into UAV engineering parameters.
- Inspiration
- This unmanned helicopter is designed for cargo transport from ships to portless islands. Maritime operational demands inspired its biomimetic approach, translating marine organisms' hydrodynamic efficiency into aerospace engineering. The streamlined fuselage curvature and rotor system synergy originate from analyzing oceanic lifeforms' drag-resistant structures.
- Project Duration
- The project started in January 2024 in Beijing and finished in February 2025 in Beijing.
- Operation Flow
- Operators on a support vessel remotely control the helicopter, using onboard cameras and sensors for real-time visual feedback. The operators identify and control helicopter to capture the cargo, providing a secure and damage-free delivery method compared to direct airdrops.
- Team Members
- Chen Xu
Wu Fangbo
Dr. Wang Lijing
Dr. Zhang Rong
Cai Tianyang
Zhang jun - Image Credits
- Image #1: Creator sxdesign, 2025. Optional Image #1: Creator sxdesign, 2025. Optional Image #2: Creator sxdesign, 2025. Optional Image #3: Creator sxdesign, 2025. Optional Image #4: Creator sxdesign, 2025.
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