Hydrogen-powered Fuel Cell Flies ScanEagle

BINGEN, Wash., April 5, 2012—Insitu Inc. announced today that its ScanEagle unmanned aircraft system (UAS) successfully completed its first hydrogen-powered fuel cell flight during a two-and-a-half-hour flight test. The hydrogen-powered fuel cell solution was implemented as a modular upgrade to the runway-independent, expeditionary Group 2 ScanEagle UAS. The collaboration between Insitu, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and United Technologies (UTC) took UTC’s 1500 Watt (2 HP) fuel cell and integrated it with NRL’s hydrogen fueling solution into a ScanEagle propulsion module. Then, in just three days, that propulsion module was fully integrated into the ScanEagle UAS at Insitu’s facilities in Bingen, Wash.