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international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he

Experimental investigation of fuel cell usage on an


air Vehicle’s hybrid propulsion system

Hüseyin Turan Arat a,*, Meryem Gizem Sürer b


a _
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

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.

in many fields for civil and military purposes. Companies and


Introduction governments are taking drone technology more seriously day-
to-day to make their business more efficient, faster, cheaper,
Drones (or UAVs) are air vehicles that controlled remotely or and safer [2]. In 2018, the US Department of Transportation
automatically and classified into 3 groups as fixed wing, rotary announced that the total number of drones registered by the
wing and their combination [1]. Today, drones are being used

* 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, Sürer 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
2 international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) exceeded one million. AeroVironment (380 g weight, 38 cm wing span) in 2003.
878,000 of these registered drones include amateurs who Hornet demonstrating that fuel cell-powered flight is feasible
receive one identification number for all the drones they own, flew for 15 min using a 10 W PEM fuel cell [15,16]. After this
whereas 122,000 of them that individually registered include success, many universities, research organizations and com-
commercial, public and other drones [3]. Besides, Goldman panies have researched and financed the usage of fuel cells in
Sachs estimated a $100 billion market opportunity for drones small UAVs [15]. One of the most successful examples of the
in 2016e2020 years [4]. According to them, $70 billion of the usage of fuel cells in small-scale fixed-wing UAVs is the Ion
market opportunity they predict belongs to the military mar- Tiger program. With a weight of 15.9 kg and a wingspan of
ket, $17 billion belongs to the consumer market and $13 billion 5.2 m, Ion Tiger provided a 26-h flight using compressed
belongs to the commercial/civil market [4]. hydrogen tank and a 550 W PEM fuel cell in 2009. In 2013, Ion
This study focuses on rotary wing UAVs. The superiority of Tiger’s compressed hydrogen tank was replaced with a liquid
rotary wing over fixed wing is that they do not need runways, hydrogen tank, resulting in a flight time of over 48 h [15,17,18].
are more agile and have good hover ability in the same place Only five years later after Hornet’s flight (in 2008), the Boeing’s
for a long time. But, they have shorter range and endurance project Dimona with 860 kg, the first manned fuel cell pow-
[5,6]. These disadvantages arise from the fact that energy ered aircraft, flew successfully during 30 min [19,20]. Subse-
storage methods used in drone technology cannot provide the quently, the Rapid 200 (2-seater) and HY4 (4-seater) aircrafts
desired energy [1,7]. Drone technology is based mostly on flew successfully using fuel cells [21e25,47]. The historical
Lithium polymer (LiePo) batteries. Commercial drones can fly evaluation of the usage of fuel cells in small-scale fixed-wing
with these batteries for about 25 min [8]. To extends flight UAVs and medium-sized manned aircrafts is given in Fig. 1a
time; researchers have focused on hybrid propulsion systems. and b, respectively.
Fuel cells are a potential power source for these in- Since 2015, the usage of fuel cells in rotary-wing UAVs has
vestigations. They have a higher specific energy in compari- become important and even commercially available samples
son to batteries and small combustion engines [7,9]. Energy have been introduced. Although fuel cell multirotor drones
density (or specific energy) determines that air vehicles can fly are a new technology, they have started to be used in com-
how far with how many passengers [10]. While conventional mercial and military areas. For instance, Intelligent Energy (IE)
lithium-ion batteries can provide approximately energy den- is supplying fuel cell multirotor to PINC Company to real-time
sity of 150e200 Wh kg 1 [10e13], a fuel cell based system can inventory tracking. EnergyOr is working with French Air Force
provide an energy density that exceeds 800 Wh kg 1 [11,13]. to supply their fuel cell multirotor [1]. Some examples of
Another important parameter is the power density (W kg 1) multirotors powered by fuel cell are given Table 1.
which plays a critical role in take-off and climb. The energy In the future, development of the usage of fuel cells in
density affects the flight time achieved with a fully fuel tank, multirotor UAVs will open new industries like usage of drone
while the power density has an impact on features such as the in the delivery of small packages. Amazon UPS, Deutsche Post
maximum speed, load capacity and flight altitude that can be DHL and Google are planning for package delivery using
achieved [10,11]. Batteries have the higher power density; fuel drones [40]. Moreover; some of these companies have regis-
cell systems also supply the better energy density than bat- tered patents for new delivery drone designs. As an example,
teries. Hence, the combination of fuel cell and batteries are Amazon is testing Amazon Prime Air which is a delivery ser-
often the best solution for the better endurance [14]. vice at small scale. This service aims to deliver packages
In the early 2000s, fuel cells began to be used in the pro- within 30 min of ordering online [41].
pulsion systems of small-scale fixed-wing UAV prototypes for In this experimental study, an alternative hybrid propul-
research purposes, and with the development of technology, sion system with fuel cell is designed to increase the flight
they have continued to be used in mid-scale aircraft’s pro- time in quadcopters. Quadcopter is powered by 30 W PEMFC
totypes (up to 4 seats) and multirotors. The first documented and a battery. Quadcopter design and infrastructure is con-
fuel cell powered UAV flight took place with Hornet from ducted 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, Sürer 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
international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

when the fuel cell is used, an improvement of approximately


Table 1 e Some examples of multirotors powered by fuel
2 min in total 12 flight tests is achieved.
cell.
Name Year Endurance (hr) Specifications of
The Models
Material and method
HyCopter-1 (HES) 2015 4 (without PL) ➢ MTOW: 5.2 kg
[31,32] 2.5 (with PL) ➢ Payload (PL):
Material
1 kg
➢ Fuel cell: 200 W
➢ Hydrogen tank The drone designed includes some important component as
(CH2): 120 g of propellers, motors, electronic speed controllers (ESCs), a
stored lithium polymer (LiePo) battery, a receiver/transmitter, a
hydrogen flight controller, a GPS(global positioning system) module,a
H2Quad 400 2015 3.75 (without PL) ➢Weight: 6.3 kg
telemetry module, a fuel cell and hydrogen tank. The main
(EnergyOr) [1,33] 2 (with PL) ➢ Payload (PL):
electrical components used in the quadcopter are given below.
0.4 kg
HyDrone 1550 (MMC) 2016 2.5 (without PL) ➢ MTOW: 22 kg Brushless outrunner DC Motor/Propeller/Battery: The
[31,34,35] ➢ Payload: 5 kg usage of power converters means extra weight and perfor-
➢ Fuel cell: mance loss. The fuel cell and battery generate DC current.
1800 W Therefore, a DC motor should be used to avoid these negative
➢ Hydrogen tank effects [7]. To provide the required thrust, four 580 kv out-
(CH2): 9 L
runner brushless motors are used. The motors using 15-inch
HyDrone 1800 (MMC) 2016 4 (with PL) ➢ Payload: 5 kg
propellers are powered by a 4S Lipo battery, which has a ca-
[31,34,35] ➢ Fuel cell:
1800 W pacity of 5200 mah and a discharge rate of 40  C, and fuel cell.
➢ Hydrogen tank The motor data obtained with the 15 inch propellers and 4S
(CH2): 9 L LiePo battery and its parameters can be listed as;
➢ Max flight alti-
tude 4500  Load current: 16.3 A
Jupiter-H2 2017 3 (without PL) ➢ Payload: 1.25 kg
 Pull: 1600 g
(FlightWave 2 (with PL) ➢ Fuel cell: 650 W
Aerospace ➢ Hydrogen tank
 Power: 241 W
Systems/IE) (CH2): 3 L  Efficiency: 6.6 (g/W)
[1,31,36,37]
HyCopter (HES) [38] 2018 Up to 3.5 (depend ➢ MTOW: 15 kg ESC: ESCs are electronic devices used to drive DC motors. It
on payload and ➢ Payload: up to is important to correctly select the communication protocols
cylinder size) 2.5 kg (depend
of the ESCs. Communication protocols are the technologies
on cylinder size
used in communication between flight controller and ESC.
➢ Fuel cell:
1500 W The faster this communication occurs is directly proportional
➢ Hydrogen tank the faster commands that given to UAVs reach the motor.
(CH2):5-9-12L Different protocols can be exemplified, in terms of faster data
LH2 multirotor 2019 12 (without PL) ➢ Fuel cell: 800 W file transmission, as; (us: Micro Seconds); PWM: 1000us-
(Intelligent Energy ➢ Hydrogen tank 2000us, Oneshot125: 125us-250us, Oneshot42: 42us-84us,
and MetaVista) [39] (LH2): 6 L
Multishot: 12.5us-25us, Dshot150: 106.8us, Dshot300: 53.4us,
Dshot600: 26, 7 us, Dshot1200: 13.4 us [42]. However, the cur-
approximately 3.1 kg. As a result of the test flights in flight rent rating of the ESCs must be greater than the motor current
route, some parameters such as endurance, energy con- rating. Considering all these, ESCs used have 20 A continuous
sumption and hydrogen consumption are analyzed and the current and 25 A max current. However, they run BLHeli_S
obtained results are graphed comparatively. Consequently, firmware and support DShot600.

Fig. 2 e The configuration of quadcopter with hybrid system.

Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Sürer 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
4 international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx

Flight Controller: One of the most critical components is


Table 2 e The weight distribution of hybrid system.
the flight controller, which is the brain-like of the system.
Component Quantity Total weight Arduino-based APM (Ardupilot Mega) 2.8 including 3-axis
(kg)
gyro, accelerometer, along with a high-performance barom-
Frame 1 0.515 eter, is chosen as flight controller. The controller has a built-in
Propeller 4 0.044 compass and is also available for use with an external com-
Motor 4 0.39
pass. In our multicopter, the compass of the GPS is used.
ESC 4 0.023
Mission Planner program is selected as open source ground
Battery 1 0.52
Flight Controller with power module 1 0.06 station software. This software is equipped for configured and
GPS 1 0.01 calibrates the controller.
Receiver 1 0.02 Fuel cell and hydrogen tank: The mostly used fuel cell for
Tubing and connectors 1 0.1 air vehicle propulsion applications is PEMFC due to their low
Fuel cell with controller (integrated 1 0.4 working temperatures, partly higher power density, rapid
cooling fan)
response to load changes, good load following ability, and
Hydrogen tank 1 0.42
Pressure reducer 1 0.15
short warm-up time [43,44]. The fuel cell selected is a polymer
High pressure gauge 1 0.025 electrolyte membrane. The fuel cell supplies hydrogen from a
Electro valves 2 0.12 0.5 L hydrogen tank, weighing 420 g and operating at 300 bar
DC/DC converter 1 0.2 pressure.
Air filter 1 0.06 Some specifications of fuel cell are given below:
Others (including telemetry with 4 g) 1 0.1
Total 3.152
 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, Sürer 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
international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx 5

Fig. 5 e Mission planner interface during mission.

 Maximum stack temperature: 55C Fig. 5 shows screenshot of mission planer interface during
 Humidification: self-humidified mission. APM has separate ports for power module, GPS,
 Cooling: air (integrated cooling fan) Telemetry, ESC and receiver. GPS and telemetry are connected
 Hydrogen flow rate at maximum output: 0.42 L/min to its own port on APM. Once all the settings have been made
 Efficiency of system: 40% at full load

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. Ac-
cording 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 Additional flight time (second)
1 11
2 8.3
3 10.8
4 10.2
5 9.9
6 8.1
7 8
8 10.3
9 11
10 7.9
11 8.7
12 10
Total 114.2
Fig. 6 e Prototype drone.

Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Sürer 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
6 international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 8 e Comparison of flight time between fuel cell and battery.

to configure the APM in the Mission planner interface, it can be between ESC and motors. One of these cables represents
seen the location of the multicopter with GPS. It can also the signal, one represents the power and one represents
viewed the instant location using GPS and define the mission the ground. The ESCs get the electrical energy via power
during the flight. Telemetry is used to monitor the flight from module from both the LiePo battery and PEMFC. The
the ground station in real time, and to receive various variable power module, which transmits power from the battery
data such as altitude value, horizontal and vertical speed, and fuel cell to the ESCs, has a second output. This sec-
battery status. ond output is a 5 V output for powering APM and units
A radio control unit operating in the 2.4 GHz band sup- connected APM such as GPS, telemetry. Details of the thin
porting 6 channels is used for our drone. The receiver is con- wires from the power module to the APM are shown in
nected to the input of the flight controller. In order to control Fig. 4. During the entire flight, both the fuel cell and the
the drone, the receiver needs 4 channels: throttle, elevator battery are powered together. The fuel cell is connected to
(pitch), aileron (roll), rudder (yaw). Pin 1 of the input is for the battery by means of a DC/DC converter. The low
aileron channel, pin 2 is for elevator channel, pin 3 is for voltage DC current generated by the fuel cell is trans-
throttle channel and pin 4 is for rudder channel. Pin 5 is mitted using the boost converter to match the battery
reserved for mode switches. voltage at the power module input. The converter used for
Another important issue is the link chain that provides increasing the fuel cell voltage from 8.4 V to 14.8 V with
power to the ESCs. ESCs connected to the output of APM 91% efficiency. This leads to a 9% energy loss.
receive PWM signals from the APM and direct the motors Fig. 6 shows designed prototype drone. A total of 12 flights
according to this command. There are 3 different cables _
were made on Iskenderun Technical University Campus. Fig. 7

Fig. 9 e Hydrogen consumption results.

Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Sürer 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
international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx 7

Fig. 10 e Comparison of energy (Wh) obtained fuel cell and battery.

_
shows flight area in Iskenderun _
Technical University (ISTE) Energy consumption analysis
Campus.
In hybrid propulsion systems, energy consumption phenom-
enon is playing a crucial role in UAVs energy balancing and
Results and discussion required energy demand should be determined in air vehicles.
In this study, comparative energy sharing is expressed in
Flight time analysis Fig. 10. In figure it can be clearly seen how affected the fuel cell
and battery in each flight for energy consumption.
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 Conclusions
fuel cell and hydrogen tank are not on-board. Additional flight
time obtained by using the fuel cell in addition to battery during This study aims to extend the flight time in quadcopter using
12 flights is shown in Table 3 and Fig. 8, respectively. An the fuel cell and battery in a hybrid propulsion manner. For
improvement of approximately 2 min in total flight time is this purpose, the quadcopter was firstly built and it was
achieved during 12 test flights. All flights were carried out with determined how many minutes it was flying with the battery.
80% battery discharge rate and same take off command. In Secondly, a total of 12 flights were made by adding 30 W PEM
order to achieve regular comparison of the tests, all conditions fuel cells in addition to the battery. Quadcopter design and
of flights tented to being similar. Three flights were run under infrastructure is conducted by authors and air vehicle weight
same atmospheric conditions (at 20  C), same day time is measured approximately 3.1 kg. Additionally hybridization
(13:00e15:00) and same place. It is experimented that the bat- phases discussed detailed. After 12 flights performed, under
tery has a flight time of approximately 6 min on all average the same conditions, the most important results of this
flights. Then the average results of these three flights consisted experimental study are listed below;
“Flight 1”. Then 12 flights results were done in three days.
➢ The propulsion system comprising of hydrogen storage,
Hydrogen consumption analysis fuel cell and battery, is the heaviest part of the drone with a
share of 60%.
One of the important parts of this study is determining the ➢ During the 12 flights, an additional total flight time of
hydrogen consumption. Because of the minimized size and approximately 2 min was obtained. This value may seem
quantity of cells, results may see similar. But when consid- very small, but this is greatly increased by increasing fuel
ering the Table 1, conventional fuel cell propulsion, i.e. 600 W, cell power (For example 600 W).
powered only one hour. The results of hydrogen consumption ➢ Total hydrogen consumption during 12 flight measured as
rates were given in Fig. 9 for various flights. Accordingly, the 0.0736 g.
total hydrogen consumption during 12 test flights was ob- ➢ The average energy consumption of the solely fuel cell
tained with 0.0736 g. during 12 flight is resulted with 0,235 Wh.

Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Sürer 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
8 international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Please cite this article as: Arat HT, Sürer 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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