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Hydrogen-Powered Drone Can Fly For 4 Hours at a Time
stowie writes: The Hycopter uses its frame to store energy in the form of hydrogen instead of air. With less lift power required, its fuel cell turns the hydrogen in its frame into electricity to power its rotors. The drone can fly for four hours at a time and 2.5 hours when carrying a 2.2-pound payload. “By removing the design silos that typically separate the energy storage component from UAV frame development - we opened up a whole new category in the drone market, in-between battery and combustion engine systems,” says CEO Taras Wankewycz.
...it's not furry.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
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BMO
Please...can we stop using 'drone' unless/until it is actually autonomous? Otherwise, it's just a little RC aircraft.
This particular one is a little RC aircraft with a new, different fuel source.
Hmm, flying RTG powered device.
What could possibly go wrong? I mean it works for NASA.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The article says 4 hours is a lot longer than other drones out there... but how much are we talking about? How long can a lithium ion powered drone stay in the air?
I can use hydrogen to keep an aircraft aloft much longer than that. The trick is don't burn it.
That's got propellers, and its go tubes, but no wires so its not a drone, its crude mockup.
It might even be just a rendering of pipes and propellers even, certainly not an engineering rendering.
I assume they'll try to crowd fund it without a working prototype?
From this link Hycopter Runs Off Fuel Cells it has a wonderful little bit of design data:
The intelligent design involved in the Hycopter would allow it to stash 120 grams (4.2 oz) of hydrogen gas at 350 bar (5,076 psi) in its current structural tubing, and this means that there would be no need for any kind of separate canister.
5000psi?!?!??! Seriously?!?!? (and there is a religious joke in there as well) I'm not buying that until I see the damn thing fly. Oh and BTW
The refillable tubes will eventually be made from polymer-lined 5 mm-thick carbon fiber tubing as opposed to clear acrylic that is part of the pictured display model. It is touted that that amount of hydrogen ought to be able to deliver a similar amount of energy as 3 kg (6.6 lb) of lithium batteries.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Hydrogen gas was used by the Nazis too...
just 4oz or so across two fairly large tubes...
It's bullshit, just do the math:
Even if pressurized at 5100 PSI, Hydrogen's density is only 25 grams/liter. 4 ounces is ~113 grams. That means you'd need ~4.5 liters.
Even if you assume that they built some super-material of incredibly strong plastic, do you really think each of those tubes contains more volume than a 2-liter soda bottle?
Years maybe, but not forever because the fuel is chosen to have a lot of activity for a short (in terms of years) time instead of a little bit for a long time. You need that intense activity because you get buggerall power from the seebeck effect (thermocouples etc), which is why the photoelectric effect is preferred in satellites unless the thing is going to be in the dark or going to be dipping into atmosphere to get sharper ground images (eg. the Kosmos series of satellites). Your RC Zeppelin would be better off with solar cells.
It's way too heavy. An RTG needs a lot of metal to work, encapsulation of the plutonium, radiators, and it needs size - there has to be a temperature differential for it to work, and for that you need a certain amount of distance to dissipate the heat across.
And it's way too inefficient. The RTG used on the Voyager Probes produced about 2400 Watts of thermal power, which was enough for 157W of electricity. The total weight of the device was 37.7 kg. This Parrot drone consumes 14.5 W when hovering, so even if RTGs scaled in a linear manner (which is optimistic), a large enough unit would be larger than the payload capacity.
The hydrogen tank in the structural members carries 120g of fuel. You could extend the longevity of the thing enormously by fitting a secondary fuel tank as part of that 1kg payload you're allowed.
Agree. RTGs aren't actually all that efficient - they're a very primitive form of nuclear power. Their advantage is in their simplicity and longevity, which makes them great for things like spacecraft that need low power for VERY long duration, and where repairs are impossible.
You'd need a pretty big aircraft before nuclear turns into a viable option.