Small Fuel Cell Powering an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

This paper presents the design of a power plant in the form of a 100 W hydrogen fuel cell to provide sufficient power to maintain steady, level flight for a small scale fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The size of the fuel size is smaller than any other fuel cell previously used for this type of application. What makes this aircraft unique is the small fuel cell, which will be integrated into the UAV to achieve the objective of sustaining flight using only 100 W of power. Performances of the fuel cell and aircraft are evaluated using data from laboratory and flight tests.