28th Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 23 - 28 September 2012, Brisbane, Australia
Paper ICAS 2012-1.8.2

PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF A FUEL-CELL-BASED HYBRID-ELECTRICAL UAV

D. Verstraete, L. Cazzato*, G. Romeo*
Univ. of Sydney, Australia; *Politechnico di Torino, Italy

Keywords: unmanned aircraft, hybrid-­electrical propulsion, fuel cell, preliminary design

Fuel cells could be significant drivers to achieve long endurance small unmanned aircraft because of their high specific energy. As fuel cells have low specific power, hybrid electrical propulsion systems are however needed to provide sufficient performance. This paper presents the preliminary design of a low altitude hybrid electrical UAV.

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