Hydrogen gasoline cells are steadily catching on in ground-based transportation, however may they quickly be a fixture of our airspace? That seems to be the aim for Virginia Seaside-based drone supply agency DroneUp. The Walmart companion, which powers the retailer’s largest-in-the-nation industrial drone supply community, lately introduced its plans to check hydrogen gasoline cell expertise from Doosan Mobility Innovation (DMI), one of many first companies to commercialize hydrogen-powered drones. The DMI and DroneUp settlement was first initiated in October 2022.
DMI’s hydrogen gasoline cell expertise yields 3-to-1 power density traits when in comparison with lithium battery-powered drones. This new expertise enormously will increase drone flight time to 2-5 hours, relying on a number of components like payload weight and climate. Along with the elevated flight time, the brand new hydrogen expertise being examined additionally has environmental sustainability advantages.
“The expertise business evolves extremely rapidly and the drone business evolves even quicker,” mentioned John Vernon, CTO of DroneUp. “It’s completely vital we discover new expertise like this and proceed testing and validating the way it may help us transfer ahead. This collaboration is de facto fascinating as a result of it addresses two main features of economic drone providers, growing flight time and lowering carbon emissions. We’re actually excited to see the outcomes from this because it may very well be a big game-changer for the business.” Watch a video of a hydrogen cartridge being loaded right into a drone right here.
