At the end of 2017, Ballard Power Systems released its next generation high performance fuel cell propulsion system to power unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones.
Ballard has also received a follow-on contract from Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary, for extended durability testing of the next-generation 1.3 kilowatt (kW) fuel cell propulsion system to power test flights of its ScanEagle UAV platform.
Ballard and Insitu have partnered over the past two years to integrate Ballard’s prior generation fuel cell propulsion system – a complete hydrogen (H2) power system for small unmanned fixed wing and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) platforms – into the ScanEagle platform. Successful flight testing was announced in mid-2017.
The next generation fuel cell propulsion system delivers a number of important advances: increased power density, resulting from a new membrane electrode assembly (MEA) design; reduced cost, resulting from a combination of new MEA and one-step fuel cell stack sealing process; and extended lifetime. The increase in rated power, without any appreciable increase in size or weight, is a particularly significant development for UAV applications.
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