SHERP

The SHERP is an all-terrain amphibious vehicle designed by Aleksei Garagashyan and in production in Ukraine since 2012. It is the most recent vehicle in this archive and the clearest demonstration that the amphibious problem still admits new answers.

Design

There is no suspension, no differential and no propeller. Four 1,600 mm low-pressure tyres are mounted directly to the hull; skid steering turns the vehicle by braking one side. In water the tyres themselves provide thrust, their tread acting as paddles, and their volume provides most of the buoyancy.

The tyres are self-inflating: exhaust gas is fed into them, so the driver can drop pressure for swamp work or raise it to lift the hull clear of an obstacle. The tyres are large enough that the SHERP can climb a vertical step over a metre high by rolling the leading tyre onto it.

Assessment

Top speed is low and on-road manners are poor, neither of which is the point. Within its intended ground — Arctic tundra, swamp, broken ice, deep mud — very little else of comparable size can follow it.