Could I interest anyone in your DIY Drones group in a new liquid hydrogen, electric motor & fuel cell powered " flying - wing blimp ", sailplane, cargo plane, helicopter or 4 rotor hovercraft?
The " KAIST " college research program over in Korea has got a " flying wing " UAV drone that's capable of over 10 hours flight time using just 500g of refrigerated liquid hydrogen fuel, a fuel cell and rather ordinary R/C electric motor.
In a report dated 11 OCT 2007, they claimed that they are ( as of OCT 2008 ) less than one year away from commercialization of ( very very simple, easily understood ) refrigerated liquid hydrogen / fuel cell / electric motor powered UAV technology.
PLEASE help me beat these college techies to the " Factory Production " punch!On February 17th, Fire / Search & Rescue organizations get alot of extra telemetry related " frequency bandwidth " when TV signals go digital in 2009 in the USA.
Telemetry operated Search & Rescue UAV models can be outfitted with digital or infrared cameras. This'll enable organizations like the US Coast Guard and US Forest Service, or Aussie equivalents to locate missing persons, even at night.
Current - technology electric motor & lithium ion battery powered UAV Search & Rescue drones are only capable of about 20 - 90 minutes of flight time. Because of this, the search radius is very small and the chances of finding ( f.e. ) lost hikers or persons thrown overboard in the ocean is greatly reduced.
Fortunately, existing, " off the shelf " technology I have discovered improves R/C or UAV flight distances by a factor of 7 - 12 times more than with lithium ion batteries alone. How? With refrigerated liquid hydrogen fuel.....
Here's a partial specifications list:
* Refrigerated liquid hydrogen fuel* Radiator* Fuel Cell* Electric Vehicle Motor Kit* Lithium Ion Batteries
If simple retrofits with the parts listed above are done, your R/C or UAV models( even helicopters ) will suddenly have a range of at least 2 - 10 hours without landing for recharge or refuel. This vital technology improvement allows Search & Rescue organizations to look for missing persons over a much wider area.
If I can help, call me at 1-480-528-1156 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Gary Thomas
Comments
As was mentioned above, the commercial use of UAVs is presently seriously restricted and would appear to be headed for oblivion.
This aspect of your prospectus would appear to be a dead issue.
" Abstract:
The Laboratory of Organometallic and Medicinal Chemistry from the EPFL has developed a cost - effective process to produce hydrogen at desired pressure ( 0.5-600atm ) in a homogeneous catalytic reaction from formic acid. Hydrogen is directly usable in fuel cells and doesn't need to be transported or stocked. Hydrogen generation rate is high and well controlled. The process is patented and the laboratory is looking for industrial partners interested by further development, license agreement, for financial resources.
Description ( partial ):
Hydrogen generation is becoming a key issue, notably regarding the supplying of fuel cells. The system developed by the research laboratory allows hydrogen generation from formic acid with a batch or continuous method. "
Unsure how hazardous formic acid is. If it leaked out of a UAV and one odd drop ever fell into your open skyward looking mouth, would the result be better or worse than a droplet of urine from a commercial jet?
For reasons such as this, I myself am wary of unusual variations from my otherwise perfectly good liquid hydrogen, fuel cell and electric motor powered propulsion system designs.
The only exhaust from a H-fuel cell is pure unadulterated water.
www.powerpal.com
There is an alternative to high pressure liquid hydrogen stocking (see BMW car maker) or high pressure gas (recently produced by CEA, France) which is based on some chemical reactions and which has the advantage of much higher specific density then the two previous and long time preservation.
Before you head down this path I suggest that you read up on FAA regulations regarding civilian UAV use in the US and autopilot export controls and ask yourself why the big boys like Raytheon, Boeing, Aeroenvironment are not perusing that market sector? They could provide technologies in the blink of an eye adapted from their current military systems. The reason that they have not is that although it would probably not be illegal for them to sell every search and rescue outfit a $30k UAV it would probably be illegal for them to fly it (currently).
You probably have 24 months to get your ducks in a row like the rest of us and there are plenty of companies out there doing just that.
Good luck.
If you say I'm repeating myself & paralleling previous posts & experimenting on a platform, then you're entitled to your opinion ....
Most folks do not have the large number of dollars required for large ground vehicle fuel cells, so why not start small with UAV drones and get alot of them into factory production. This way, the price drops and eventually everybody can afford proton-exchange-membrane hydrogen fuel cells.
However, your intended use of this technology for UAVs specifically is puzzling.
The world would benifit greatly from any practical, cost-effective fuel cell technology which is brought into production, and UAVs would honestly not be foremost in terms of urgency.
I am currious as to why you have chosen this as the platform to experiment upon.
less problems with hi pressured or "highly refrigerated" fuel.
but i can buy hydrogen fuel cells "everywhere", methanol and propane not so popular...
i want to get some, but but can not find...