Innovative fuel cell propulsion technology enabling long endurance for small UAVs

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UAV flight time is critical for several mission scenarios, as frequent recharging or refuelling limits the effective availability and service time, as well as range. This has thus far prevented the use of fully electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), since their performance scales unfavourably with the size/intensity of the UAV operation. Moreover, when small electric UAVs are massively deployed, and particularly in time critical mission, the handling and charging of many battery packs becomes a logistical problem. Thus, manned aerial platforms (helicopters and planes) or large (>25 kg) fixed-wing UAV systems, powered by internal combustion engines (ICE) have been the preferred option for long endurance missions such as monitoring and surveying. However, these large systems present high CAPEX and OPEX, mostly due to the oversized nature of these systems. The unique approach of UAVEndure II project is the combination of two technologies, namely small fixed-wing UAVs and fuel-cell power generation at a downsized scale and price not attempted before. The rationale is to harvest all the benefits of small electric UAVs, while having access to high endurance hitherto only possible with large aerial platforms propelled by ICE. Sky-Watch (SKY) and KraftWerk (KWT) have jointly developed the next generation fuel cell propulsion system for small UAVs - ELJUN - to cover the needs of drone OEMs and end-users for increased flight range/time of small UAVs. ELJUN provides 10x more flight range than LiPO battery. This is expected to further increase the usability of these small systems as an alternative to larger, costlier drones, thus untapping wider access to the use of this technology in civil and governmental applications. Thus, we expect ELJUN to become a new reference in the sector.