Estonia-based Skycorp is displaying its e-Drone Zero UAS, purposely-designed to run on a hydrogen fuel cell at this weeks’ Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) conference in Chicago. The 15.4-pound drone (mtow) is designed to carry payloads up to 4.4 pounds aloft for up to two hours at altitudes to 9,842 feet.

According to Skycorp, the e-Drone Zero can be equipped with LiDAR, infrared turret camera, forward-looking infrared (FLIR), and custom audio packages, as well as other options such as transponder, parachute, and advanced sensor packages. The aircraft is powered by an 800-watt (1.4-kilowatt peak power) hydrogen fuel cell and power unit from the UK’s Intelligent Energy. 

Skycorp CEO Marek Alliksoo said the fuel-cell-powered e-Drone can fly three times as long as an aircraft that relies solely on battery power and that overall operating costs are only 10 percent more. “A fuel cell vehicle is more productive,” he noted. “You can change out the hydrogen fuel cylinder in less than two minutes as opposed to taking six hours to recharge a battery pack. There is a lot less downtime.”

Alliksoo also noted that a conventional-powered drone’s battery pack needs to be changed out every six months with heavy use as frequent recharging limits its ability to produce peak power over time, while a fuel cell delivers constant power. 

Lee Juby, Intelligent Energy’s chief sales officer, said his company is offering fuel cells with power outputs from 650 watts to 2.4 kilowatts and that they are being offered with a warranty that guarantees constant power output for at least 1,000 hours as opposed to battery warranties that are typically of a much shorter duration, sometimes as little as 50 hours. Juby said his company can work with companies like Skycorp to offer power solutions on purpose-design vehicles or as a retrofit to battery-only designs such as the popular DJI M600.

While Intelligent Energy does not build its own drones, it does provide customers everything they need to make a drone run with a hydrogen fuel cell, including the power unit with standard drone connectors, hybrid batteries, hydrogen fuel cylinder regulators, and connector hoses and valves that can be attached to industrial refueling tanks. Intelligent Energy does not sell hydrogen or its own cylinders to customers, but it can point customers toward suppliers for these items. “We don’t want our customers to be fuel cell experts. We want to offer them a plug-and-play solution,” Juby said.