TAIPEI, Taiwan - Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) integrates fuel cell technologies and drone applications. The fuel cell drone has successfully passed a series of sea crossing and mountain rescuing tests and set a new flying time record of 126 minutes of 10 kilograms weight loading of biaxial rotorcraft.
ITRI is planning to establish a “Flue Cell and Drone Integrating League” with Coretronic Intelligent Robotics, Chung-Hsin Electric and Machinery Manufacturing, AVIX, TAIWAN DRONE 100, Yu Jya Technology, Teco, SIMPLO, Thunder Tiger, hiPower and Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER), to enforce the technical abilities of fuel cell and long-flying time drone technologies by collaborating in fuel materials, system integration, data communication, and drone applications.
Durability is the biggest challenge of drones. The fuel cell system has the advantage of high energy density and only needs to add fuel to maintain power, which is equivalent to the drone's small generator, where it can break through the traditional lithium battery durability bottleneck.
Li Zong-ming, director of the Institute of Materials and Chemical Engineering, ITRI said that the diversity and universality of drone applications are increasing, while elevates the durability and payload is a main goal of global drone industry.
He pointed out that ITRI positively engages the flue cell drone technology development, adopting hydrogen, clean energy, as a fuel, to accomplish more than three times of flight duration compared with traditional lithium battery power system by using high-efficiency fuel cell battery stack and key material technologies.
And through the lightweight design of the fuselage, provides more space for the payload weight of the fuel cell UAV. It can complete the flight in 126 minutes with a payload of 10 kg for a dual-rotor rotor, 130 minutes with a payload of 5 kg for a multi-rotor, and 74.5 minutes with a payload of 10 kg for a helicopter, meeting the needs of outdoor inspection, commercial logistics, emergency medical transportation, etc.
