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UAVs for long endurance require suitable power supply that will allow them to fly for many hours, especially in missions requiring flight beyond visual line of sight. Hydrogen fuel cell technology is an environmentally friendly solution towards a drone industry bottleneck, because it can provide continuous power for UAVs so long as the hydrogen is supplied continually.

The hydrogen fuel cell H1 developed by MMC is tailored-designed to enable commercial drone for long endurance. H1- Fuel Cell will allow professional drones to fly for 2.5 hours to 4 hours – dramatically enhancing their commercial potential for applications like aerial inspection, monitoring, search and rescue, public security, precision agriculture, parcel delivery and so on.

According to MMC’s website, the H-1 Fuel Cell is a drone agnostic solution, compatible with MMC’s own widely adopted industrial drones as well as other commercial drones from manufacturers including DJI.   Hydrogen fuel offers tremendous advantages over LiPo batteries.  In addition to incredible flight endurance, hydrogen drones are able to fly in extreme conditions, stable in temperatures ranging from -10 degrees Celsius to 40 degrees Celsius.  Hydrogen fuel cells are eco-friendly and pollution-free, and can refuel in under 40 minutes.

Most importantly, the longer flight times open new opportunities for commercial applications.  As flight beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) becomes more common in countries around the world, the long range drone applications continue to expand.  The H-1 Fuel Cell has been flying off of the shelves to provide solutions for mapping, surveying, security and search and rescue. Transportation infrastructure like railways use long-range drones to monitor tracks for blockages or damage.  Security and law enforcement agencies use drones with long flight times for border patrol, crowd control and other applications: offering a less expensive and more effective alternative to the traditional “boots on the ground” approach.

Common industrial applications like agriculture and mapping also benefit from longer flight times.   Drone mapping opportunities expand to larger bridges, highway and other infrastructure projects – saving construction and planning companies in survey costs and development time while providing new and better data.

Various solutions for UAVs and other unmanned systems will be at the focus of the forthcoming AUS&R Conference and Exhibition – Autonomous Unmanned Systems and Robotics. The event, organized by iHLS, will take place on September 18th, 2017 at the Lago Conference Center in Rishon LeZion.

For more details

Booth/sponsorship: Keren Kalderon  kerenk@i-HLS.com   +972-52-3653165