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Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle's hybrid propulsion system
international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx
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Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system Hu¨seyin Turan Arat a,*, Meryem Gizem Su¨rer b _ Iskenderun Technical University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Department of Mechatronics _ Engineering, Iskenderun Campus, Hatay, 31200, Turkey b _ Iskenderun Technical University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Department of Mechanical _ Engineering, Iskenderun Campus, Hatay, 31200, Turkey a
highlights Hybrid propulsion system is designed by authors self built drone. In this experimental study, hydrogen and energy consumption parameters were measured. Hybridization systematic provided by addition a battery to PEMFC. The drone’s hybridization system, components and flight routines were also discussed. At the end of the 12 flights, hybrid drone has promising results in terms of flight time.
article info
abstract
Article history:
Today, drones are offering a key solution and being preferable more and more by gov-
Received 11 July 2019
ernments and companies for military and commercial usage. One of the biggest handicaps
Received in revised form
to the more widespread usage of drones is insufficient flight time and weight issues. The
28 September 2019
aim of this study is to contribute to the literature about of increasing the flight time in
Accepted 30 September 2019
drones. In this experimental study, a hybrid propulsion system is designed using fuel cell
Available online xxx
and battery to increase the flight time of a quadcopter. This hybrid propulsion system mainly consists of 30 W polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), compressed
Keywords:
hydrogen tank, lithium-polymer battery and 4 brushless motors that drive propeller. As a
Quadcopter
result of the test flights done in flight route, some parameters like endurance, energy
Hydrogen fuel cell
consumption and hydrogen consumption are analyzed; by the way obtained results are
Aviation
graphed comparatively. Consequently, when the fuel cell is used, an improvement of
Hybrid propulsion system
approximately 2 min in total 12 flight tests is achieved. © 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction Drones (or UAVs) are air vehicles that controlled remotely or automatically and classified into 3 groups as fixed wing, rotary wing and their combination [1]. Today, drones are being used
in many fields for civil and military purposes. Companies and governments are taking drone technology more seriously dayto-day to make their business more efficient, faster, cheaper, and safer [2]. In 2018, the US Department of Transportation announced that the total number of drones registered by the
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (H.T. Arat). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242 0360-3199/© 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) exceeded one million. 878,000 of these registered drones include amateurs who receive one identification number for all the drones they own, whereas 122,000 of them that individually registered include commercial, public and other drones [3]. Besides, Goldman Sachs estimated a $100 billion market opportunity for drones in 2016e2020 years [4]. According to them, $70 billion of the market opportunity they predict belongs to the military market, $17 billion belongs to the consumer market and $13 billion belongs to the commercial/civil market [4]. This study focuses on rotary wing UAVs. The superiority of rotary wing over fixed wing is that they do not need runways, are more agile and have good hover ability in the same place for a long time. But, they have shorter range and endurance [5,6]. These disadvantages arise from the fact that energy storage methods used in drone technology cannot provide the desired energy [1,7]. Drone technology is based mostly on Lithium polymer (LiePo) batteries. Commercial drones can fly with these batteries for about 25 min [8]. To extends flight time; researchers have focused on hybrid propulsion systems. Fuel cells are a potential power source for these investigations. They have a higher specific energy in comparison to batteries and small combustion engines [7,9]. Energy density (or specific energy) determines that air vehicles can fly how far with how many passengers [10]. While conventional lithium-ion batteries can provide approximately energy density of 150e200 Wh kg 1 [10e13], a fuel cell based system can provide an energy density that exceeds 800 Wh kg 1 [11,13]. Another important parameter is the power density (W kg 1) which plays a critical role in take-off and climb. The energy density affects the flight time achieved with a fully fuel tank, while the power density has an impact on features such as the maximum speed, load capacity and flight altitude that can be achieved [10,11]. Batteries have the higher power density; fuel cell systems also supply the better energy density than batteries. Hence, the combination of fuel cell and batteries are often the best solution for the better endurance [14]. In the early 2000s, fuel cells began to be used in the propulsion systems of small-scale fixed-wing UAV prototypes for research purposes, and with the development of technology, they have continued to be used in mid-scale aircraft’s prototypes (up to 4 seats) and multirotors. The first documented fuel cell powered UAV flight took place with Hornet from
AeroVironment (380 g weight, 38 cm wing span) in 2003. Hornet demonstrating that fuel cell-powered flight is feasible flew for 15 min using a 10 W PEM fuel cell [15,16]. After this success, many universities, research organizations and companies have researched and financed the usage of fuel cells in small UAVs [15]. One of the most successful examples of the usage of fuel cells in small-scale fixed-wing UAVs is the Ion Tiger program. With a weight of 15.9 kg and a wingspan of 5.2 m, Ion Tiger provided a 26-h flight using compressed hydrogen tank and a 550 W PEM fuel cell in 2009. In 2013, Ion Tiger’s compressed hydrogen tank was replaced with a liquid hydrogen tank, resulting in a flight time of over 48 h [15,17,18]. Only five years later after Hornet’s flight (in 2008), the Boeing’s project Dimona with 860 kg, the first manned fuel cell powered aircraft, flew successfully during 30 min [19,20]. Subsequently, the Rapid 200 (2-seater) and HY4 (4-seater) aircrafts flew successfully using fuel cells [21e25,47]. The historical evaluation of the usage of fuel cells in small-scale fixed-wing UAVs and medium-sized manned aircrafts is given in Fig. 1a and b, respectively. Since 2015, the usage of fuel cells in rotary-wing UAVs has become important and even commercially available samples have been introduced. Although fuel cell multirotor drones are a new technology, they have started to be used in commercial and military areas. For instance, Intelligent Energy (IE) is supplying fuel cell multirotor to PINC Company to real-time inventory tracking. EnergyOr is working with French Air Force to supply their fuel cell multirotor [1]. Some examples of multirotors powered by fuel cell are given Table 1. In the future, development of the usage of fuel cells in multirotor UAVs will open new industries like usage of drone in the delivery of small packages. Amazon UPS, Deutsche Post DHL and Google are planning for package delivery using drones [40]. Moreover; some of these companies have registered patents for new delivery drone designs. As an example, Amazon is testing Amazon Prime Air which is a delivery service at small scale. This service aims to deliver packages within 30 min of ordering online [41]. In this experimental study, an alternative hybrid propulsion system with fuel cell is designed to increase the flight time in quadcopters. Quadcopter is powered by 30 W PEMFC and a battery. Quadcopter design and infrastructure is conducted by authors and air vehicle weight is measured
Fig. 1 e The historical evaluation of the usage of fuel cells in small-scale fixed-wing UAVs [15e18,26e29] (a) and mid-scale manned aircrafts [22e25,27,30](b). Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Table 1 e Some examples of multirotors powered by fuel cell. Name
Year Endurance (hr) Specifications of The Models
HyCopter-1 (HES) [31,32]
2015 4 (without PL) 2.5 (with PL)
H2Quad 400 (EnergyOr) [1,33]
2015 3.75 (without PL) 2 (with PL)
HyDrone 1550 (MMC) 2016 2.5 (without PL) [31,34,35]
HyDrone 1800 (MMC) 2016 4 (with PL) [31,34,35]
Jupiter-H2 (FlightWave Aerospace Systems/IE) [1,31,36,37] HyCopter (HES) [38]
2017 3 (without PL) 2 (with PL)
➢ MTOW: 5.2 kg ➢ Payload (PL): 1 kg ➢ Fuel cell: 200 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2): 120 g of stored hydrogen ➢Weight: 6.3 kg ➢ Payload (PL): 0.4 kg ➢ MTOW: 22 kg ➢ Payload: 5 kg ➢ Fuel cell: 1800 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2): 9 L ➢ Payload: 5 kg ➢ Fuel cell: 1800 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2): 9 L ➢ Max flight altitude 4500 ➢ Payload: 1.25 kg ➢ Fuel cell: 650 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2): 3 L
2018 Up to 3.5 (depend ➢ MTOW: 15 kg on payload and ➢ Payload: up to cylinder size) 2.5 kg (depend on cylinder size ➢ Fuel cell: 1500 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2):5-9-12L LH2 multirotor 2019 12 (without PL) ➢ Fuel cell: 800 W (Intelligent Energy ➢ Hydrogen tank and MetaVista) [39] (LH2): 6 L
approximately 3.1 kg. As a result of the test flights in flight route, some parameters such as endurance, energy consumption and hydrogen consumption are analyzed and the obtained results are graphed comparatively. Consequently,
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when the fuel cell is used, an improvement of approximately 2 min in total 12 flight tests is achieved.
Material and method Material The drone designed includes some important component as propellers, motors, electronic speed controllers (ESCs), a lithium polymer (LiePo) battery, a receiver/transmitter, a flight controller, a GPS(global positioning system) module,a telemetry module, a fuel cell and hydrogen tank. The main electrical components used in the quadcopter are given below. Brushless outrunner DC Motor/Propeller/Battery: The usage of power converters means extra weight and performance loss. The fuel cell and battery generate DC current. Therefore, a DC motor should be used to avoid these negative effects [7]. To provide the required thrust, four 580 kv outrunner brushless motors are used. The motors using 15-inch propellers are powered by a 4S Lipo battery, which has a capacity of 5200 mah and a discharge rate of 40 C, and fuel cell. The motor data obtained with the 15 inch propellers and 4S LiePo battery and its parameters can be listed as;
Load current: 16.3 A Pull: 1600 g Power: 241 W Efficiency: 6.6 (g/W)
ESC: ESCs are electronic devices used to drive DC motors. It is important to correctly select the communication protocols of the ESCs. Communication protocols are the technologies used in communication between flight controller and ESC. The faster this communication occurs is directly proportional the faster commands that given to UAVs reach the motor. Different protocols can be exemplified, in terms of faster data file transmission, as; (us: Micro Seconds); PWM: 1000us2000us, Oneshot125: 125us-250us, Oneshot42: 42us-84us, Multishot: 12.5us-25us, Dshot150: 106.8us, Dshot300: 53.4us, Dshot600: 26, 7 us, Dshot1200: 13.4 us [42]. However, the current rating of the ESCs must be greater than the motor current rating. Considering all these, ESCs used have 20 A continuous current and 25 A max current. However, they run BLHeli_S firmware and support DShot600.
Fig. 2 e The configuration of quadcopter with hybrid system. Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Table 2 e The weight distribution of hybrid system. Component
Quantity Total weight (kg)
Frame Propeller Motor ESC Battery Flight Controller with power module GPS Receiver Tubing and connectors Fuel cell with controller (integrated cooling fan) Hydrogen tank Pressure reducer High pressure gauge Electro valves DC/DC converter Air filter Others (including telemetry with 4 g) Total
1 4 4 4 1 1 1 1 1 1
0.515 0.044 0.39 0.023 0.52 0.06 0.01 0.02 0.1 0.4
1 1 1 2 1 1 1
0.42 0.15 0.025 0.12 0.2 0.06 0.1 3.152
Flight Controller: One of the most critical components is the flight controller, which is the brain-like of the system. Arduino-based APM (Ardupilot Mega) 2.8 including 3-axis gyro, accelerometer, along with a high-performance barometer, is chosen as flight controller. The controller has a built-in compass and is also available for use with an external compass. In our multicopter, the compass of the GPS is used. Mission Planner program is selected as open source ground station software. This software is equipped for configured and calibrates the controller. Fuel cell and hydrogen tank: The mostly used fuel cell for air vehicle propulsion applications is PEMFC due to their low working temperatures, partly higher power density, rapid response to load changes, good load following ability, and short warm-up time [43,44]. The fuel cell selected is a polymer electrolyte membrane. The fuel cell supplies hydrogen from a 0.5 L hydrogen tank, weighing 420 g and operating at 300 bar pressure. Some specifications of fuel cell are given below: Number of cells: 14 Rated power: 30 W Rated performance: 8.4 V @ 3.6 A
Fig. 3 e Weight distribution in percent of hybrid system.
Fig. 4 e Electric diagram of hybrid system. Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Fig. 5 e Mission planner interface during mission.
Maximum stack temperature: 55C Humidification: self-humidified Cooling: air (integrated cooling fan) Hydrogen flow rate at maximum output: 0.42 L/min Efficiency of system: 40% at full load
Fig. 5 shows screenshot of mission planer interface during mission. APM has separate ports for power module, GPS, Telemetry, ESC and receiver. GPS and telemetry are connected to its own port on APM. Once all the settings have been made
Drones comprise of 3 main sections as propulsion system, avionics and airframe [45]. Fig. 2 shows configuration of designed quadcopter. For the hybrid system, a weight analysis is performed and the results are given in Table 2 and Fig. 3, respectively. According to these data, the propulsion system which consisting of hydrogen storage system, fuel cell system and battery, is the heaviest part of the drone with a share of 60%.
Method Fig. 4 illustrated the electric diagram of the quadcopter. The heart of the electrical system of quadcopter is the APM flight controller [46]. To calibrate and configure the APM, the mission planner program is used. However, Mission Planner can be used to remotely follow up the drone’s flight missions.
_ Fig. 7 e Flight area in (ISTE) Campus.
Table 3 e Additional flight time provided fuel cell during test flights. Number
Fig. 6 e Prototype drone.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total
Additional flight time (second) 11 8.3 10.8 10.2 9.9 8.1 8 10.3 11 7.9 8.7 10 114.2
Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Fig. 8 e Comparison of flight time between fuel cell and battery.
to configure the APM in the Mission planner interface, it can be seen the location of the multicopter with GPS. It can also viewed the instant location using GPS and define the mission during the flight. Telemetry is used to monitor the flight from the ground station in real time, and to receive various variable data such as altitude value, horizontal and vertical speed, battery status. A radio control unit operating in the 2.4 GHz band supporting 6 channels is used for our drone. The receiver is connected to the input of the flight controller. In order to control the drone, the receiver needs 4 channels: throttle, elevator (pitch), aileron (roll), rudder (yaw). Pin 1 of the input is for aileron channel, pin 2 is for elevator channel, pin 3 is for throttle channel and pin 4 is for rudder channel. Pin 5 is reserved for mode switches. Another important issue is the link chain that provides power to the ESCs. ESCs connected to the output of APM receive PWM signals from the APM and direct the motors according to this command. There are 3 different cables
between ESC and motors. One of these cables represents the signal, one represents the power and one represents the ground. The ESCs get the electrical energy via power module from both the LiePo battery and PEMFC. The power module, which transmits power from the battery and fuel cell to the ESCs, has a second output. This second output is a 5 V output for powering APM and units connected APM such as GPS, telemetry. Details of the thin wires from the power module to the APM are shown in Fig. 4. During the entire flight, both the fuel cell and the battery are powered together. The fuel cell is connected to the battery by means of a DC/DC converter. The low voltage DC current generated by the fuel cell is transmitted using the boost converter to match the battery voltage at the power module input. The converter used for increasing the fuel cell voltage from 8.4 V to 14.8 V with 91% efficiency. This leads to a 9% energy loss. Fig. 6 shows designed prototype drone. A total of 12 flights _ were made on Iskenderun Technical University Campus. Fig. 7
Fig. 9 e Hydrogen consumption results. Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Fig. 10 e Comparison of energy (Wh) obtained fuel cell and battery.
_ _ shows flight area in Iskenderun Technical University (ISTE) Campus.
Results and discussion Flight time analysis A total of 12 flights were made on flight area. Only battery provides a flight time of 6 min while the fuel cell and hydrogen tank are on-board; provides a flight time of 11 min while the fuel cell and hydrogen tank are not on-board. Additional flight time obtained by using the fuel cell in addition to battery during 12 flights is shown in Table 3 and Fig. 8, respectively. An improvement of approximately 2 min in total flight time is achieved during 12 test flights. All flights were carried out with 80% battery discharge rate and same take off command. In order to achieve regular comparison of the tests, all conditions of flights tented to being similar. Three flights were run under same atmospheric conditions (at 20 C), same day time (13:00e15:00) and same place. It is experimented that the battery has a flight time of approximately 6 min on all average flights. Then the average results of these three flights consisted “Flight 1”. Then 12 flights results were done in three days.
Hydrogen consumption analysis One of the important parts of this study is determining the hydrogen consumption. Because of the minimized size and quantity of cells, results may see similar. But when considering the Table 1, conventional fuel cell propulsion, i.e. 600 W, powered only one hour. The results of hydrogen consumption rates were given in Fig. 9 for various flights. Accordingly, the total hydrogen consumption during 12 test flights was obtained with 0.0736 g.
Energy consumption analysis In hybrid propulsion systems, energy consumption phenomenon is playing a crucial role in UAVs energy balancing and required energy demand should be determined in air vehicles. In this study, comparative energy sharing is expressed in Fig. 10. In figure it can be clearly seen how affected the fuel cell and battery in each flight for energy consumption.
Conclusions This study aims to extend the flight time in quadcopter using the fuel cell and battery in a hybrid propulsion manner. For this purpose, the quadcopter was firstly built and it was determined how many minutes it was flying with the battery. Secondly, a total of 12 flights were made by adding 30 W PEM fuel cells in addition to the battery. Quadcopter design and infrastructure is conducted by authors and air vehicle weight is measured approximately 3.1 kg. Additionally hybridization phases discussed detailed. After 12 flights performed, under the same conditions, the most important results of this experimental study are listed below; ➢ The propulsion system comprising of hydrogen storage, fuel cell and battery, is the heaviest part of the drone with a share of 60%. ➢ During the 12 flights, an additional total flight time of approximately 2 min was obtained. This value may seem very small, but this is greatly increased by increasing fuel cell power (For example 600 W). ➢ Total hydrogen consumption during 12 flight measured as 0.0736 g. ➢ The average energy consumption of the solely fuel cell during 12 flight is resulted with 0,235 Wh.
Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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In further studies, authors suggested that the fuel cell will be selected and chosen more powerful. Additionally, when conducted a self-built quadcopter, it should be taken into consideration that the plate of UAVs will be stronger as much as possible.
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Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he
Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system Hu¨seyin Turan Arat a,*, Meryem Gizem Su¨rer b _ Iskenderun Technical University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Department of Mechatronics _ Engineering, Iskenderun Campus, Hatay, 31200, Turkey b _ Iskenderun Technical University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Department of Mechanical _ Engineering, Iskenderun Campus, Hatay, 31200, Turkey a
highlights Hybrid propulsion system is designed by authors self built drone. In this experimental study, hydrogen and energy consumption parameters were measured. Hybridization systematic provided by addition a battery to PEMFC. The drone’s hybridization system, components and flight routines were also discussed. At the end of the 12 flights, hybrid drone has promising results in terms of flight time.
article info
abstract
Article history:
Today, drones are offering a key solution and being preferable more and more by gov-
Received 11 July 2019
ernments and companies for military and commercial usage. One of the biggest handicaps
Received in revised form
to the more widespread usage of drones is insufficient flight time and weight issues. The
28 September 2019
aim of this study is to contribute to the literature about of increasing the flight time in
Accepted 30 September 2019
drones. In this experimental study, a hybrid propulsion system is designed using fuel cell
Available online xxx
and battery to increase the flight time of a quadcopter. This hybrid propulsion system mainly consists of 30 W polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), compressed
Keywords:
hydrogen tank, lithium-polymer battery and 4 brushless motors that drive propeller. As a
Quadcopter
result of the test flights done in flight route, some parameters like endurance, energy
Hydrogen fuel cell
consumption and hydrogen consumption are analyzed; by the way obtained results are
Aviation
graphed comparatively. Consequently, when the fuel cell is used, an improvement of
Hybrid propulsion system
approximately 2 min in total 12 flight tests is achieved. © 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction Drones (or UAVs) are air vehicles that controlled remotely or automatically and classified into 3 groups as fixed wing, rotary wing and their combination [1]. Today, drones are being used
in many fields for civil and military purposes. Companies and governments are taking drone technology more seriously dayto-day to make their business more efficient, faster, cheaper, and safer [2]. In 2018, the US Department of Transportation announced that the total number of drones registered by the
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (H.T. Arat). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242 0360-3199/© 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) exceeded one million. 878,000 of these registered drones include amateurs who receive one identification number for all the drones they own, whereas 122,000 of them that individually registered include commercial, public and other drones [3]. Besides, Goldman Sachs estimated a $100 billion market opportunity for drones in 2016e2020 years [4]. According to them, $70 billion of the market opportunity they predict belongs to the military market, $17 billion belongs to the consumer market and $13 billion belongs to the commercial/civil market [4]. This study focuses on rotary wing UAVs. The superiority of rotary wing over fixed wing is that they do not need runways, are more agile and have good hover ability in the same place for a long time. But, they have shorter range and endurance [5,6]. These disadvantages arise from the fact that energy storage methods used in drone technology cannot provide the desired energy [1,7]. Drone technology is based mostly on Lithium polymer (LiePo) batteries. Commercial drones can fly with these batteries for about 25 min [8]. To extends flight time; researchers have focused on hybrid propulsion systems. Fuel cells are a potential power source for these investigations. They have a higher specific energy in comparison to batteries and small combustion engines [7,9]. Energy density (or specific energy) determines that air vehicles can fly how far with how many passengers [10]. While conventional lithium-ion batteries can provide approximately energy density of 150e200 Wh kg 1 [10e13], a fuel cell based system can provide an energy density that exceeds 800 Wh kg 1 [11,13]. Another important parameter is the power density (W kg 1) which plays a critical role in take-off and climb. The energy density affects the flight time achieved with a fully fuel tank, while the power density has an impact on features such as the maximum speed, load capacity and flight altitude that can be achieved [10,11]. Batteries have the higher power density; fuel cell systems also supply the better energy density than batteries. Hence, the combination of fuel cell and batteries are often the best solution for the better endurance [14]. In the early 2000s, fuel cells began to be used in the propulsion systems of small-scale fixed-wing UAV prototypes for research purposes, and with the development of technology, they have continued to be used in mid-scale aircraft’s prototypes (up to 4 seats) and multirotors. The first documented fuel cell powered UAV flight took place with Hornet from
AeroVironment (380 g weight, 38 cm wing span) in 2003. Hornet demonstrating that fuel cell-powered flight is feasible flew for 15 min using a 10 W PEM fuel cell [15,16]. After this success, many universities, research organizations and companies have researched and financed the usage of fuel cells in small UAVs [15]. One of the most successful examples of the usage of fuel cells in small-scale fixed-wing UAVs is the Ion Tiger program. With a weight of 15.9 kg and a wingspan of 5.2 m, Ion Tiger provided a 26-h flight using compressed hydrogen tank and a 550 W PEM fuel cell in 2009. In 2013, Ion Tiger’s compressed hydrogen tank was replaced with a liquid hydrogen tank, resulting in a flight time of over 48 h [15,17,18]. Only five years later after Hornet’s flight (in 2008), the Boeing’s project Dimona with 860 kg, the first manned fuel cell powered aircraft, flew successfully during 30 min [19,20]. Subsequently, the Rapid 200 (2-seater) and HY4 (4-seater) aircrafts flew successfully using fuel cells [21e25,47]. The historical evaluation of the usage of fuel cells in small-scale fixed-wing UAVs and medium-sized manned aircrafts is given in Fig. 1a and b, respectively. Since 2015, the usage of fuel cells in rotary-wing UAVs has become important and even commercially available samples have been introduced. Although fuel cell multirotor drones are a new technology, they have started to be used in commercial and military areas. For instance, Intelligent Energy (IE) is supplying fuel cell multirotor to PINC Company to real-time inventory tracking. EnergyOr is working with French Air Force to supply their fuel cell multirotor [1]. Some examples of multirotors powered by fuel cell are given Table 1. In the future, development of the usage of fuel cells in multirotor UAVs will open new industries like usage of drone in the delivery of small packages. Amazon UPS, Deutsche Post DHL and Google are planning for package delivery using drones [40]. Moreover; some of these companies have registered patents for new delivery drone designs. As an example, Amazon is testing Amazon Prime Air which is a delivery service at small scale. This service aims to deliver packages within 30 min of ordering online [41]. In this experimental study, an alternative hybrid propulsion system with fuel cell is designed to increase the flight time in quadcopters. Quadcopter is powered by 30 W PEMFC and a battery. Quadcopter design and infrastructure is conducted by authors and air vehicle weight is measured
Fig. 1 e The historical evaluation of the usage of fuel cells in small-scale fixed-wing UAVs [15e18,26e29] (a) and mid-scale manned aircrafts [22e25,27,30](b). Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Table 1 e Some examples of multirotors powered by fuel cell. Name
Year Endurance (hr) Specifications of The Models
HyCopter-1 (HES) [31,32]
2015 4 (without PL) 2.5 (with PL)
H2Quad 400 (EnergyOr) [1,33]
2015 3.75 (without PL) 2 (with PL)
HyDrone 1550 (MMC) 2016 2.5 (without PL) [31,34,35]
HyDrone 1800 (MMC) 2016 4 (with PL) [31,34,35]
Jupiter-H2 (FlightWave Aerospace Systems/IE) [1,31,36,37] HyCopter (HES) [38]
2017 3 (without PL) 2 (with PL)
➢ MTOW: 5.2 kg ➢ Payload (PL): 1 kg ➢ Fuel cell: 200 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2): 120 g of stored hydrogen ➢Weight: 6.3 kg ➢ Payload (PL): 0.4 kg ➢ MTOW: 22 kg ➢ Payload: 5 kg ➢ Fuel cell: 1800 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2): 9 L ➢ Payload: 5 kg ➢ Fuel cell: 1800 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2): 9 L ➢ Max flight altitude 4500 ➢ Payload: 1.25 kg ➢ Fuel cell: 650 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2): 3 L
2018 Up to 3.5 (depend ➢ MTOW: 15 kg on payload and ➢ Payload: up to cylinder size) 2.5 kg (depend on cylinder size ➢ Fuel cell: 1500 W ➢ Hydrogen tank (CH2):5-9-12L LH2 multirotor 2019 12 (without PL) ➢ Fuel cell: 800 W (Intelligent Energy ➢ Hydrogen tank and MetaVista) [39] (LH2): 6 L
approximately 3.1 kg. As a result of the test flights in flight route, some parameters such as endurance, energy consumption and hydrogen consumption are analyzed and the obtained results are graphed comparatively. Consequently,
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when the fuel cell is used, an improvement of approximately 2 min in total 12 flight tests is achieved.
Material and method Material The drone designed includes some important component as propellers, motors, electronic speed controllers (ESCs), a lithium polymer (LiePo) battery, a receiver/transmitter, a flight controller, a GPS(global positioning system) module,a telemetry module, a fuel cell and hydrogen tank. The main electrical components used in the quadcopter are given below. Brushless outrunner DC Motor/Propeller/Battery: The usage of power converters means extra weight and performance loss. The fuel cell and battery generate DC current. Therefore, a DC motor should be used to avoid these negative effects [7]. To provide the required thrust, four 580 kv outrunner brushless motors are used. The motors using 15-inch propellers are powered by a 4S Lipo battery, which has a capacity of 5200 mah and a discharge rate of 40 C, and fuel cell. The motor data obtained with the 15 inch propellers and 4S LiePo battery and its parameters can be listed as;
Load current: 16.3 A Pull: 1600 g Power: 241 W Efficiency: 6.6 (g/W)
ESC: ESCs are electronic devices used to drive DC motors. It is important to correctly select the communication protocols of the ESCs. Communication protocols are the technologies used in communication between flight controller and ESC. The faster this communication occurs is directly proportional the faster commands that given to UAVs reach the motor. Different protocols can be exemplified, in terms of faster data file transmission, as; (us: Micro Seconds); PWM: 1000us2000us, Oneshot125: 125us-250us, Oneshot42: 42us-84us, Multishot: 12.5us-25us, Dshot150: 106.8us, Dshot300: 53.4us, Dshot600: 26, 7 us, Dshot1200: 13.4 us [42]. However, the current rating of the ESCs must be greater than the motor current rating. Considering all these, ESCs used have 20 A continuous current and 25 A max current. However, they run BLHeli_S firmware and support DShot600.
Fig. 2 e The configuration of quadcopter with hybrid system. Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Table 2 e The weight distribution of hybrid system. Component
Quantity Total weight (kg)
Frame Propeller Motor ESC Battery Flight Controller with power module GPS Receiver Tubing and connectors Fuel cell with controller (integrated cooling fan) Hydrogen tank Pressure reducer High pressure gauge Electro valves DC/DC converter Air filter Others (including telemetry with 4 g) Total
1 4 4 4 1 1 1 1 1 1
0.515 0.044 0.39 0.023 0.52 0.06 0.01 0.02 0.1 0.4
1 1 1 2 1 1 1
0.42 0.15 0.025 0.12 0.2 0.06 0.1 3.152
Flight Controller: One of the most critical components is the flight controller, which is the brain-like of the system. Arduino-based APM (Ardupilot Mega) 2.8 including 3-axis gyro, accelerometer, along with a high-performance barometer, is chosen as flight controller. The controller has a built-in compass and is also available for use with an external compass. In our multicopter, the compass of the GPS is used. Mission Planner program is selected as open source ground station software. This software is equipped for configured and calibrates the controller. Fuel cell and hydrogen tank: The mostly used fuel cell for air vehicle propulsion applications is PEMFC due to their low working temperatures, partly higher power density, rapid response to load changes, good load following ability, and short warm-up time [43,44]. The fuel cell selected is a polymer electrolyte membrane. The fuel cell supplies hydrogen from a 0.5 L hydrogen tank, weighing 420 g and operating at 300 bar pressure. Some specifications of fuel cell are given below: Number of cells: 14 Rated power: 30 W Rated performance: 8.4 V @ 3.6 A
Fig. 3 e Weight distribution in percent of hybrid system.
Fig. 4 e Electric diagram of hybrid system. Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Fig. 5 e Mission planner interface during mission.
Maximum stack temperature: 55C Humidification: self-humidified Cooling: air (integrated cooling fan) Hydrogen flow rate at maximum output: 0.42 L/min Efficiency of system: 40% at full load
Fig. 5 shows screenshot of mission planer interface during mission. APM has separate ports for power module, GPS, Telemetry, ESC and receiver. GPS and telemetry are connected to its own port on APM. Once all the settings have been made
Drones comprise of 3 main sections as propulsion system, avionics and airframe [45]. Fig. 2 shows configuration of designed quadcopter. For the hybrid system, a weight analysis is performed and the results are given in Table 2 and Fig. 3, respectively. According to these data, the propulsion system which consisting of hydrogen storage system, fuel cell system and battery, is the heaviest part of the drone with a share of 60%.
Method Fig. 4 illustrated the electric diagram of the quadcopter. The heart of the electrical system of quadcopter is the APM flight controller [46]. To calibrate and configure the APM, the mission planner program is used. However, Mission Planner can be used to remotely follow up the drone’s flight missions.
_ Fig. 7 e Flight area in (ISTE) Campus.
Table 3 e Additional flight time provided fuel cell during test flights. Number
Fig. 6 e Prototype drone.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total
Additional flight time (second) 11 8.3 10.8 10.2 9.9 8.1 8 10.3 11 7.9 8.7 10 114.2
Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Fig. 8 e Comparison of flight time between fuel cell and battery.
to configure the APM in the Mission planner interface, it can be seen the location of the multicopter with GPS. It can also viewed the instant location using GPS and define the mission during the flight. Telemetry is used to monitor the flight from the ground station in real time, and to receive various variable data such as altitude value, horizontal and vertical speed, battery status. A radio control unit operating in the 2.4 GHz band supporting 6 channels is used for our drone. The receiver is connected to the input of the flight controller. In order to control the drone, the receiver needs 4 channels: throttle, elevator (pitch), aileron (roll), rudder (yaw). Pin 1 of the input is for aileron channel, pin 2 is for elevator channel, pin 3 is for throttle channel and pin 4 is for rudder channel. Pin 5 is reserved for mode switches. Another important issue is the link chain that provides power to the ESCs. ESCs connected to the output of APM receive PWM signals from the APM and direct the motors according to this command. There are 3 different cables
between ESC and motors. One of these cables represents the signal, one represents the power and one represents the ground. The ESCs get the electrical energy via power module from both the LiePo battery and PEMFC. The power module, which transmits power from the battery and fuel cell to the ESCs, has a second output. This second output is a 5 V output for powering APM and units connected APM such as GPS, telemetry. Details of the thin wires from the power module to the APM are shown in Fig. 4. During the entire flight, both the fuel cell and the battery are powered together. The fuel cell is connected to the battery by means of a DC/DC converter. The low voltage DC current generated by the fuel cell is transmitted using the boost converter to match the battery voltage at the power module input. The converter used for increasing the fuel cell voltage from 8.4 V to 14.8 V with 91% efficiency. This leads to a 9% energy loss. Fig. 6 shows designed prototype drone. A total of 12 flights _ were made on Iskenderun Technical University Campus. Fig. 7
Fig. 9 e Hydrogen consumption results. Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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Fig. 10 e Comparison of energy (Wh) obtained fuel cell and battery.
_ _ shows flight area in Iskenderun Technical University (ISTE) Campus.
Results and discussion Flight time analysis A total of 12 flights were made on flight area. Only battery provides a flight time of 6 min while the fuel cell and hydrogen tank are on-board; provides a flight time of 11 min while the fuel cell and hydrogen tank are not on-board. Additional flight time obtained by using the fuel cell in addition to battery during 12 flights is shown in Table 3 and Fig. 8, respectively. An improvement of approximately 2 min in total flight time is achieved during 12 test flights. All flights were carried out with 80% battery discharge rate and same take off command. In order to achieve regular comparison of the tests, all conditions of flights tented to being similar. Three flights were run under same atmospheric conditions (at 20 C), same day time (13:00e15:00) and same place. It is experimented that the battery has a flight time of approximately 6 min on all average flights. Then the average results of these three flights consisted “Flight 1”. Then 12 flights results were done in three days.
Hydrogen consumption analysis One of the important parts of this study is determining the hydrogen consumption. Because of the minimized size and quantity of cells, results may see similar. But when considering the Table 1, conventional fuel cell propulsion, i.e. 600 W, powered only one hour. The results of hydrogen consumption rates were given in Fig. 9 for various flights. Accordingly, the total hydrogen consumption during 12 test flights was obtained with 0.0736 g.
Energy consumption analysis In hybrid propulsion systems, energy consumption phenomenon is playing a crucial role in UAVs energy balancing and required energy demand should be determined in air vehicles. In this study, comparative energy sharing is expressed in Fig. 10. In figure it can be clearly seen how affected the fuel cell and battery in each flight for energy consumption.
Conclusions This study aims to extend the flight time in quadcopter using the fuel cell and battery in a hybrid propulsion manner. For this purpose, the quadcopter was firstly built and it was determined how many minutes it was flying with the battery. Secondly, a total of 12 flights were made by adding 30 W PEM fuel cells in addition to the battery. Quadcopter design and infrastructure is conducted by authors and air vehicle weight is measured approximately 3.1 kg. Additionally hybridization phases discussed detailed. After 12 flights performed, under the same conditions, the most important results of this experimental study are listed below; ➢ The propulsion system comprising of hydrogen storage, fuel cell and battery, is the heaviest part of the drone with a share of 60%. ➢ During the 12 flights, an additional total flight time of approximately 2 min was obtained. This value may seem very small, but this is greatly increased by increasing fuel cell power (For example 600 W). ➢ Total hydrogen consumption during 12 flight measured as 0.0736 g. ➢ The average energy consumption of the solely fuel cell during 12 flight is resulted with 0,235 Wh.
Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242
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In further studies, authors suggested that the fuel cell will be selected and chosen more powerful. Additionally, when conducted a self-built quadcopter, it should be taken into consideration that the plate of UAVs will be stronger as much as possible.
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Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Su¨rer MG, Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.09.242