Itty-Bitty, Plasma-Powered Flying Saucer

Tinkerers have tried all kinds of ways to get real-life flying saucers to take off. Most involve harnessing playing with air flow, through ducted fans or the "Coanda Effect" -- the fact that air follows a curved surface, increasing the lift of a rounded craft.

University of Florida aerospace engineer Subrata Roy has just patented a different approach: magnetohydrodynamics. "Pass a current or magnetic field through a conducting fluid and it will generate a force,"* New Scientist *explains. And maybe -- just maybe -- that force could be big enough to power a tiny saucer.

With a span of less than 15 centimetres, [Roy's] aircraft qualifies as a micro air vehicle (MAV), but it has an unconventional design to say the least. It is a saucer shape covered with electrodes that ionise air to create a plasma. This plasma is then accelerated by an electric field to push air around and generate lift.

Roy says the machine can be filled with helium to reduce its weight, and is efficient enough to be powered by onboard batteries. Its ability to hover and generate lift electronically means that it is particularly robust against gusts of wind that send other MAVs off course, says Roy.

All he needs to do now is build one and get it flying. Like other MAVs, the primary application would probably be surveillance, but a plasma flying saucer would make a great toy too.

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