Hydrogen gasoline cells are steadily catching on in ground-based transportation, however might they quickly be a fixture of our airspace? That seems to be the purpose for Virginia Seashore-based drone supply agency DroneUp. The Walmart accomplice, 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 corporations 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 vastly 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 trade evolves extremely shortly and the drone trade evolves even quicker,” mentioned John Vernon, CTO of DroneUp. “It’s completely essential we discover new expertise like this and proceed testing and validating the way it can assist us transfer ahead. This collaboration is admittedly fascinating as a result of it addresses two main elements of business drone providers, growing flight time and lowering carbon emissions. We’re actually excited to see the outcomes from this because it might be a major game-changer for the trade.” Watch a video of a hydrogen cartridge being loaded right into a drone right here.
