Tested in Tallinn Estonia 20140510, 7:30 AM
The Windtrain is essentially a modular land yacht. While we were in the process of developing Protei, he became clear that a shape-shifting vehicle could become a long modular vehicle. So not just bending but having a long articulated structure, as if we were transitioning from a car to a train architecture. When you transition from a short shape shifting foil to a long vehicle in which each of the module has its own propulsion (wind), many new problems arise such as resonance (as shown with the trailer weight distribution video here), aeroelastic flutter, jamming, the need to control every linkage precisely etc. One of the greatest advantage of working on land is that it reduces the necessity to waterproof electronics (expensive), you do not need to get all the way to the water (an open parking lot, or a basketball or soccer pitch does great) and the land vehicle tends to be faster. It is likely that to develop further versions of Protei, we will use the Windtrain platform.
Testing a 6.5 long Windtrain (Science Park, HK), with Guillaume Dupont.
Cesar presenting Windtrain at TEDxTallinn
Test of Windtrain in Hong Kong, 2014
Cesar Jung-Harada & Guillaume Dupont testing at Science and Technology Park, Hong Kong
