H3 Dynamics and Carbonix have joined forces on
the development and production of a hydrogen powered eVTOL
(electric vertical take-off and landing) unmanned aircraft system
(UAS).
Carbonix, one of Australia’s leading UAV
manufacturers, has extensive experience with advanced composite
manufacturing, aerostructure design and sophisticated control
systems for vertical and landing capabilities, while H3 Dynamics
has been working on hydrogen UAV technology for over
15 years and has just released new
hydrogen-electric nacelle technology.
Hydrogen powered systems can increase flight duration by several orders of magnitude
when compared to current battery technology, making it an
attractive solution for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)
commercial drone operators.
The hydrogen-enabled range elongation will support
Carbonix’ existing long distance linear inspection applications
such as grid lines and pipelines, mining industry mapping and
surveying across large expanses of land, much of which relies
on the use of expensive helicopters or light aircraft.
H3 Dynamics will integrate its off-the-shelf hydrogen systems to Carbonix’s
existing fleet of small unmanned VTOL systems (pictured), enabling training
and accelerating field experience.
“Creating intelligent long range aerial systems
enabling reliable and effective access to critical remote data
while respecting the environment is key to us,” said Philip Van
der Burg, Carbonix CEO. “We will work with H3 Dynamics to complete
the hydrogen value chain for several rapidly growing UAV segments,
and to do it much more quickly – right here in Australia.”
The Carbonix H2-eVTOL UAV will be first to make
use of H3 Dynamics’ hydrogen-electric nacelle
technology.
The patented distributed hydrogen-electric
propulsion technology liberates the main fuselage, making room for
bigger sensors or more cargo for autonomous delivery covering long
distances. The special nacelle system liberates fuselage volume
for aerial deliveries, opening up medical deliveries to remote
communities in Australia.
“Australia will most likely be the first to use
commercial electric-powered drones that use hydrogen instead of
batteries, in order to fly for many hours at a time and reach
those remote locations, or survey much larger areas of land,” said
Taras Wankewycz, CEO and Co-Founder at H3 Dynamics.
H3 Dynamics unveiled its Australian
BVLOS plans with Australia’s Ripper Group, just a few months ago.
A Carbonix drone
operator, Ripper will start with the deployment of fully
autonomous drone stations capable of BVLOS operations across
multiple sites, in applications ranging from mining to swimmer and
surfer protection.
“We are convinced unmanned systems are the
evolutionary starting point to increasingly large hydrogen powered
flight platforms, where testing, certification and regulatory
approval challenges vary based on aircraft weight. H3 Dynamics’
plan is to increase the size of hydrogen air frames every year
until we are able to fly passenger-scale aircraft. We want to
mature airborne hydrogen technology in today’s existing uncrewed
aviation markets as a first essential step towards that ultimate
vision,” added Taras Wankewycz.
