Major Shift in Drone Performance

Major Shift in Drone Performance

Photo-from-SKYCORP-website

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The flight endurance of a powerful drone has been doubled. The e-Drone Zero, Europe’s first hydrogen powered drone is a long endurance quadcopter. The drone can now fly 3 to 4 times longer than any Lithium-ion powered electric drones – opening up new possibilities and applications, including surveying, security, search and rescue, defense and mobile mapping.

Drone manufacturer SKYCORP has successfully doubled the maximum flight times of the drone to two hours by using a new, ultra-lightweight gas cylinder from AMS Composite Cylinders.

The e-Drone Zero designed for the commercial market features a compact, custom military grade frame, and is powered by a unique, air cooled hydrogen fuel cell module developed by Intelligent Energy. The system is managed by one of the most advanced artificial intelligence operating systems around, according to spacewar.com.

The extended range was achieved by swapping the original 1.5L cylinder, which weighed around 1kg, for AMS’s innovative new 3L carbon composite cylinder. This is one of the lightest cylinders of its kind in the world today – providing double the gas capacity of the previous e-Drone Zero cylinder, whilst increasing the system weight by just 600g.

Marek Alliksoo, CEO at SKYCORP, said: “e-Drone Zero utilises the latest hydrogen fuel cell and AI systems to deliver a huge step change in drone performance – improvements that simply can’t be achieved using today’s lithium-ion battery technology.

“When it comes to powered flight, every gram matters… Hydrogen fuel cell systems provide significant advantages in terms of power to weight ratios – and using AMS cylinders helps to compound these benefits. Switching to the new AMS cylinders has provided a huge increase in the hydrogen capacity per kilo, enabling e-Drone Zero to fly significantly further and carry heavier loads.”

Type 3 carbon composite cylinders offer high pressure (300 Bar), ultra-low weight, and optional NLL (Non-Limited Life) performance. They are in widespread use across a wide range of healthcare, emergency, breathing air, aviation, and other applications.