Press Release
Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter by Chen Xu Receives the Silver A' Design Award in Futuristic Design
The international grand jury of the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition recognizes Chen Xu for futuristic design
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 23, 2025 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter by Chen Xu, designed for Beihang University, has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Futuristic Design category. The result belongs to the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Silver A' Design Award Means
The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.
Regarding 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.
About Chen Xu
As a design studio in China, “SX” stands for Chinese “ShangXiang” which taken from “Yi Chuan”. The name expounds our core opinion: To build significance of daily life through the observation, extraction, abstraction and reorganization of phenomena. sxdesign creates and values languages and ideas of client and user, such as requirements, knowledge, or the attitude of sxdesign itself.
Award Record
Chen Xu is a winner of 19 A' Design Awards, including this recognition. The awards were granted between the 2020 - 2021 and the 2024 - 2025 editions of the A' Design Award & Competition.
About the A' Futuristic Design Award
The A' Futuristic Design Award is an international futuristic design competition recognizing cutting-edge futuristic design concepts from designers worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to futuristic designers, futuristic brands, futuristic architects and concept product designers from all countries. Typical entries include conceptual architectures, advanced robotics, innovative transportation systems, futuristic fashion designs, progressive furniture pieces and next-gen electronic gadgets. The awarded futuristic designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/futuristic
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/170590
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/170590
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!170590
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/304255
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Skybridge Unmanned Helicopter
- Function
- Unmanned Helicopter
- Category
- Futuristic Design
- Discipline
- Design Strategy
- Industry
- Innovation and Design Industry
- Colors
- Lavender, Dim Gray, Gray, Dark Slate Gray and Light Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Beihang University
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Chen Xu
- Country
- China
- Recognition
- Silver A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2024 - 2025
- Design ID
- #170590
Credits
- Team
- Wu Fangbo, Dr. Wang Lijing, Dr. Zhang Rong, Cai Tianyang and Zhang jun
- Image Credits
- Creator sxdesign, 2025. Optional; Creator sxdesign, 2025.
Design Details
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Realization and 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.
- Operation and Interaction
- 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.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in January 2024 in Beijing and finished in February 2025 in Beijing.
- Specifications
- with rotor: 3786X3600X1330mm without rotor:2660X1054X950mm
- Keywords
- Civil Drone, Product Design, Remotely Piloted Aircraft, Unmanned Helicopter, Maritime Transport
