㈜자이언트드론(대표이사 이용우)은 올해 상반기 수소연료전지를 주동력원으로 하여 수직이착륙(VTOL : Vertical Take-Off and Landing) 기반의 고정익 드론을 비행하여 다음과 같은 성과를 입증했다고 밝혔다.
개발된 수직이착륙(VTOL) 드론 GD-HV1은 회전익과 고정익 방식의 장점을 결합한 것으로 기존 고정익 드론과는 다르게 회전익 프로펠러를 사용하여 좁은 공간에서도 수직 이착륙이 가능하며 수평비행시에는 고정익을 이용한 비행 방식이며 주동력을 수소연료전지로 하여 2시간 이상 비행이 가능한 것이 특징이다.
GD-HV1은 고정익 기체 특성을 활용하여 장시간 비행 및 높은 고도의 비행이 가능하며 넓은 지역을 촬영하고 빠른 속도로 비행하여 군사 목적의 감시정찰, 항공촬영 및 측량, 소방 업무 등에 활용되기에 적합하다.
㈜자이언트드론은 수직이착륙 기반 고정익 드론의 설계 및 제작 전 과정을 연구, 개발하여 이번 성능테스트를 진행하였으며, 최대 비행시간 2시간 21분, 최대 143.8KM의 비행거리 성능을 기록했다.
항공안전법 특별 비행 승인기준에서 비가시권거리 비행을 승인받기 위해서는 안전을 위해 원거리 장애물 탐지가 필수적으로 요구되는데 ㈜자이언트드론이 개발한 GD-HV1은 108M 전방 거리에서 장애물 탐지에 성공하여 비가시권 임무 수행에 적합한 기체 성능을 입증하였다.
㈜자이언트드론은 수직이착륙 고정익 드론 개발을 위하여 3D스캐닝 결과를 바탕으로 실제 비행환경 조건에서의 공력해석 진행 과정을 연구하고 이를 통한 공기 저항 감소 설계를 제품에서 실현했다고 발표했다.
연구 결과를 통해 기체 전방에 유선형 용기를 위치하고, 기체 후방에 스택을 배치하여 고정익 비행시 생성되는 기체 저항 유발 및 스택 부하 감소를 설계에 반영했다.
GD-HV1 개발을 완료한 ㈜자이언트드론은 기존 고정익 드론들이 1시간대에 머물던 체공 시간을 2시간대로 향상시킨 점과 원거리 임무 수행의 장점을 활용한 산불 감시 및 시설물 점검, 측량, 순찰 감시 등에 해당 제품을 활용할 수 있을 것으로 보인다고 밝혔다.
이를 바탕으로 하반기에는 국산 FC 기반의 신뢰성높은 비행제어시스템을 출시할 예정이며 국내뿐만 아니라 해외에도 수출 계획을 가진 것으로 알려졌다.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Advent Technologies, an innovation-driven company in the fuel cell and hydrogen technology space, today announced that it has reached an agreement to collaborate with Los Alamos National Labs, University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), University of New Mexico and Toyota Motor North America R&D (TMNA R&D) to continue development of next-generation high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane (HT-PEM) fuel cell technology for the automotive industry. The program is funded by an Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (“ARPA-E”) OPEN award.
Dr. Vasilis Gregoriou, Advent’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, commented: “We at Advent are committed to bringing HT-PEM technology to the market. Drawing on our leadership team’s decades of experience, we intend to commercialize and scale-up membrane electrode assembly (MEA) production while working closely with Tier-1 manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers. We believe that HT-PEM represents not only a breakthrough for heavy-duty automotive technology but also for aviation, portable, and off-grid power generation.”
Dr. Emory DeCastro, Advent’s Chief Technology Officer, added: “We are very excited to work with LANL (Los Alamos) and our other partners to advance this technology. These developments have the potential to lead to groundbreaking cost savings – including dropping overall fuel cell system costs by 25% and enabling higher power density and simplify packaging constraints. Furthermore, the potential to use eFuels instead of hydrogen can provide a significantly lower total cost of ownership and allow for faster deployment of fuel cell technology across the industry.”
The purpose of the development program is to use HT-PEM technology operating at 80oC-150oC to achieve a variety of objectives, including:
1.
High Energy Efficiency: The target efficiency of the HT-PEM simplified fuel cell system is 70% vs. 60% for current incumbent technology; thereby providing a significant total cost of ownership advantage. This is especially important for long haul trucks using hydrogen fuel cells.
2.
Fast Startup Time: Develop extremely stable fuel-cells that can start under nearly water-saturated conditions.
3.
Superior Heat Management: Completely remove the external humidifiers/demisters and substantially reduce the size of the radiator. Various industry sources have stated that radiators for Class 8 Trucks running with low-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane (LT-PEM) technology are an enormous challenge. There is evidence that the size of the radiator required to run a Class 8 truck in hot and dry conditions (i.e. in places such as Nevada, Australia, Africa and India) is impractical and will pose a huge challenge for the deployment of current fuel cell technology. Next-generation HT-PEM technology aims to solve this problem.
4.
Increase Lifetime: Boost tolerance to impurities and improve performance with platinum and non-platinum catalysts.
5.
Address the hydrogen infrastructure challenge: Allow for the direct reformation of a variety of fuels (natural gas, methanol, ethanol, and zero-carbon emissions eFuels of the future) to low grade (impure) hydrogen within the vehicle, thus bypassing the need for expensive hydrogen storage, transportation, and de/compression technology and hydrogen refill stations.
About Advent Technologies
Advent Technologies is an innovation-driven company in the fuel cell and hydrogen technology space. Our vision is to accelerate electrification through advanced materials, components, and next-generation fuel cell technology. Our technology applies to electrification (fuel cells) and energy storage (flow batteries, hydrogen production) markets, which we commercialize through partnerships with Tier1s, OEMs, and System Integrators. For more information on Advent Technologies, please visit the Company’s website at https://www.advent.energy/
As the fuel cell community knows, October 8, 2020 isHydrogen and Fuel Cell Day–a day that’s celebrated every year, and that reflects the increasing importance of zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells in the future of transportation.
At Ballard, we are proud of our role in bringing PEM fuel cells to their current level of global prominence. For over 40 years, we have led the world in hydrogen fuel cell technology developments.
this blog, you’ll learn about Ballard’s role in developing the core PEM fuel cell technologies, and our ongoing fuel cell innovations that are increasing performance while dramatically lowering the costs of fuel cell vehicles. You’ll also get a sneak peek into our product roadmap, and what the future holds for anyone planning to develop or purchase zero-emission buses or trucks.
Delivering fuel cell technology for a cleaner planet: From core PEM technologies to complete systems
Our proprietary proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology efficiently creates zero-emission electricity from air and hydrogen, without the use of toxic materials. This core PEM technology still leads the industry—and we continue to refine it. In fact, we have invested more than $1.5 billion in PEM development.
One of our key assets is our people. Together, we are a collective team of specialized fuel cell developers. Nearly 400 scientists and engineers draw upon 4,700 person-years of experience to advance our product designs. Research and development activities are ongoing to develop new technology that is fed into each product iteration.
Our research and development activities have successfully advanced our designs.We have leveraged our work in technically challenging automotive applications, improved component robustness, scaled up our manufacturing and product processes, and developed our supply chain. These activities have contributed to the launch last year of our8th generation fuel cell modulethat leads the industry in power, cost and durability.
We continue to innovate, with a focus on practical commercial advantages
We at Ballard are not content to rest on our successes. We are continually improving our technologies—both the fuel cell engine and the manufacturing processes that create them. To expand our reach to serve a broader range of bus and truck applications, we are continuing to improve those aspects of fuel cell performance that are most critical to commercial vehicles:
Power density—packing more power in lighter, smaller modules reduces material costs. It also means we can fit fuel cell powertrains under more hoods, even in heavy-duty trucks. Our recently released new FCgen®-HPS fuel cell stack leads the industry with a power density of 4.3kW/L.
Cost reduction— lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of commercial vehicles, from increased efficiency (which lowers fuel consumption) and better powertrain integration to recycling and refurbishing fuel cells. Lifecycle cost reductions have now made vehicles powered by Ballard technology competitive on a TCO basis for several heavy duty motive applications.(Learn more inFuel Cell Price to Drop 70-80% as Production Volume Scales.)
Durability—With over 30,000 hours of service lifetime powered on the road, Ballard-powered vehicles require only one fuel cell module overhaul during their entire service life, which results in major TCO savings. And, we see a path to even longer life fuel cells.
Looking ahead: What’s next for Ballard?
Continuous improvement to meet the market requirements for commercial vehicles requires an evolution in key fuel cell stack technology attributes. Our technical targets for the next four years are clear, as demonstrated in the chart below.
Ballard, with its vast experience, has the ability to address the trade-offs necessary at the core fuel cell component level to meet market requirements. To put it simply, we know what the technology levers are and we know how to move them to achieve these targets. One such lever is the bipolar plate design.
Proprietary bipolar plate designs deliver sustainability, long life and low cost
Within a PEM fuel cell stack, the bipolar plates are a key component that uniformly distributes fuel and air, removes heat, and prevents leakage of gases and coolant. Our proprietarycarbon bipolar plate designsprovide a strong competitive advantage.
As you can see in the chart above, Ballard is on the path to achieving a 35% reduction in cell pitch, or bipolar plate assembly thickness in our latest fuel cell stack designs. This brings the cell pitch in alignment with our competitors using metal plates. Metal bipolar plates from automakers, however, are far higher in cost.Ballard bipolar platesare:
the most durable on the market, with a service life of 35,000 hours.
the most sustainable, with reusable graphite plates.
the most cost-effective, graphite is the lowest cost material at any manufacturing volume.
So, with these advances in bipolar plate cell pitch we can deliverindustry-leading power densityat a lower cost with much higher durability. This all translates into lower lifecycle costs for the vehicle operator.
Growing our product portfolio
High power modules with scalable power levels
Our product roadmap includes the development of high-powered, scalable modules that serve a broad range of power levels, from 45 to 450kW. Scalable power levels, with shared technologies across product lines, allow us to serve markets ranging from commercial light duty truck and medium-duty vehicles (such as medium-duty trucks and buses) to heavy-duty truck applications.
Shared components simplify manufacturing and lower costs for customers. As we continually improve the performance of our fuel cell stack technologies, the improvements will be applied across all power levels, to improve vehicle performance in every one of our markets.
Partnerships will be key to our success. The heavy duty products (150-450kW) for instance, will be developed through a partnership with MAHLE, a leading international Tier 1 supplier to the commercial vehicle and automotive industry.
Ballard has prime responsibility for system design and the fuel cell stack sub-system, while MAHLE’s scope of responsibility includes balance-of-plant components, thermal management and power electronics for the complete fuel cell system. The combination of technology improvements and product industrialization will help us to achieve our 70% cost reduction target.
Why choose Ballard?
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day is a perfect opportunity to reflect on Ballard’s pivotal role in zero-emissions transportation. We developed the core PEM technologies and, through continual innovation, we remain the global technology leader in the PEM fuel cell space. More than 3,000 Ballard-powered buses, trams, trucks, and trains are in commercial use today.
Anyone designing a fuel cell vehicle—or selecting the zero-emission trucks or buses for their fleet—should seriously consider Ballard fuel cell products for their industry-leading durability, power density, reliability, sustainability and low total life cycle cost.
