We caught up with Mr. Jonathan Douglas-Smith, Aerospace Business Development Manager for Intelligent Energy to learn more about their product. Intelligent energy is manufacturer of hydrogen fuel cells, typically for UAV’s. The “IE-SOAR” product line, for example, allows an operator to extends the flight times of UAV’s by three to five times over state of the art batteries. Additional benefits include long lifespan, zero maintenance, and zero emissions at point of use.
The gaseous hydrogen is stored in the cylinder at high pressure, 300 bar 4500psi. They are agnostic to the fuel source, in that they have customers flying on liquid hydrogen, and that’s another ten times of flight time over batteries. When asked about where Intelligent Energy sees the utilization of this technology, Mr. Douglas-Smith stated “we’re selling our fuel stop products to UAV manufacturers, and those end customers are using the long endurance hydrogen fuel cell priority for long-linear asset inspection work, such as transmission lines and pipelines”.
In the USA, their customers are obtaining BVLOS waivers to fly fuel cell drones, just like the one on the display stand, to do those long inspection routes, up to 100 miles a day. The commercial traction has never been higher, particularly in the parcel delivery and civilian market, where the need to carry those packages for longer distances is a key requirement of the industry. So that aspect is receiving a huge amount of growth Intelligent Energy. If a package delivery company is setting up its distribution centers to pick up packages and carry them longer distances, the [potential] higher efficiency is that they’d need fewer distribution centers over a certain area when flying on these fuel cells.
The fuel cell the cylinder is quickly recharged. Hydrogen is filled into the cylinder after a few minutes compared to batteries that can take at least half an hour to recharge. In terms of handling requirements, for folks that are in the process of maintaining refueling and so forth, what the consumer or drone builder needs to know to be able to utilize this technology, Intelligent Energy has spent three years working on making it simple to use. Mr. Douglas-Smith stated that they tried to make it as plug and play as possible, and for lack of a better term “idiot proof”. Mr. Douglas-Smith stated that “if any operator were to not pay attention for any period of time there's always a safety mechanism in place to stop the hydrogen overfilling, or for a connector to be loose, so no hydrogen will be leaked that is in the danger zone”.
Aero-TV is a production of the Internationally syndicated Aero-News Network. Seen worldwide by hundreds of thousands of aviators and aviation adherents, ANN's Aero-TV has produced over 5000 aviation and feature programs, including nearly 2000 episodes of our daily aviation news program, AIRBORNE UNLIMITED, currently hosted by Holland Lee. Now in its third decade of operation, parent company Aero-News Network, has the most aggressive and intensive editorial profile of any aviation news organization and has published nearly a half-million news and feature stories since its inception -- having pioneered the online 24/7 aviation new-media model that so many have emulated.
Aero Linx: Model Aeronautical Association of Australia MAAA clubs are about fun flying, camaraderie and community. For over 75 years, the MAAA has been Australia’s largest fl>[...]
Touchdown Zone Lighting Two rows of transverse light bars located symmetrically about the runway centerline normally at 100 foot intervals. The basic system extends 3,000 feet alon>[...]
“Discovery and innovation are central to our mission at Virgin Galactic. We’re excited to build on our successful record of facilitating scientific experiments in subor>[...]
How To Get A Story On Aero-TV News/Feature Programming How do I submit a story idea or lead to Aero-TV? If you would like to submit a story idea or lead, please contact Jim Campbel>[...]
Student Pilot Reported That During Rotation, “All Of A Sudden The Back Of The Plane Kicked To The Right..." Analysis: The student pilot reported that during rotation, “>[...]
ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (05.02.24)
See All