Patent ID: 8382539

Claim:
An amphibious vehicle including: a self-propelled rolling base having wheels on an underside of the vehicle for driving the vehicle on firm ground along a longitudinal axis of the vehicle; first and second hinged assemblies that may be folded and unfolded, each hinged assembly including a caisson, a float, and a ramp successively hingedly connected to each other, in that order, so that the caisson, the float, and the ramp can be stored in a Z-shaped configuration, with the caissons hingedly connected to the self-propelled rolling base, the first hinged assembly, when folded in the Z-shaped configuration, being stored on a top side of the self-propelled rolling base, and the second hinged assembly, when folded in the Z-shaped configuration, being stored on top of the first hinged assembly, wherein the first and second hinged assemblies are deployed by being partially or fully unfolded in directions transverse to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle for bridging a depression into which the vehicle is driven; and a deployment device deploying the second hinged assembly on a first side of the rolling base before beginning to deploy the first hinged assembly on a second side of the rolling base, and deploying the first and second hinged assemblies in a plurality of deployment configurations, wherein, in a first deployment configuration, the caissons are unfolded from and are transverse to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, and the floats and the ramps are folded and underneath the respective caissons, facing in the same direction as the underside of the vehicle.