$6,800 Buys You a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Drone With a 30 Km Range

BSHARK, the hydrogen-powered drone research company based in the British Virgin Islands, has announced a hydrogen fuel cell drone with an entry price of USD $6,800.

BSHARK partnered with MicroMultiCopter (MMC), a manufacturer of the first hydrogen-powered drone HyDrone 1550, to release the Narwhal 2, its new hydrogen-powered drone equipped with air cooled fuel cell, class-leading control over LTE technology, all-in-one remote control, standalone flight controller and 30km video transmitter. MMC provided production service for BSHARK.

The features of Narwhal 2 include:

• 30 KM control range, supported by newly released video transmitter and AIO ground control station.
• 5 Flight modes, route planning, one-key to take-off/land, loiter, target guided and manual.
• IP45, industry level of rain/dust/fireproof.
• 2.4/5.8GHz dual fallback channel, wireless video transmission with data sending and receiving modules.
• 8 PWM channels output, supported by the B1 flight control system.
• Integrated single piece data and video transmitter, 32 full channels’ real-time video streaming on PC, phone or tablet.
• Compact all-in-one remote control station, user-friendly with ease on how to plan the flight route, zoom image, control gimbal, and display drone’s flying attitude parameter.
• 120minsFlight Time, 1000gPayload, 30kmTransmission Range, 4GCovered.

Based on aerial aluminum, the frame of Narwhal 2 is rain, dust and fireproof. As a drone fueled by hydrogen, Narwhal 2’s core components must be absolutely reliable. A metal-based PEM fuel cell is deployed instead of the graphite plate, which greatly accelerates the power density.

“After dealing with the data transmission issues, we found that our drone is truly useful for long-distance missions,” the CEO of BSHARK Mr. Ling said. Hence Narwhal 2 has been developed with 30 km transmitters. Less than 0.25 seconds’ latency LTE module is also equipped to extend the operation range of UAVs, thus, 3G/ 4G, WIFI and other link methods are all available to link the drones and control stations.

A mobile hydrogen fuelling station called Orca1 is available for sale in the market, making it convenient to carry out hydrogen fuelling at home according to the manufacturer.

In case it encounters any electrical disturbances, Narwhal 2 has the capability to hover at a given spot and wait for commands without going out of the control range or crashing. The integration of data & video transmission function, gimbal controlling, remote controller and a ground station makes this all-in-one control station unique. Fingerprint & facial recognition function, 4G video transmission function, one-key return function should any signal loss occurs, PCB/integrated module, less than 150g are other features of the control station.

Narwhal 2 also supports 20x zoom camera, FLIR Duo R dual sensor and GoPro suitable for the following missions, like-inspection, specifically the hydrogen fuel cell with zoom camera for telecom tower inspection program; monitoring- for example forest monitoring that can replace human security personnel efficiently.