Draft US NRC report suggests fuel cell augmented Mako UAS is operational
The US Special Operations Command may be operationally deploying a fuel cell augmented version of the Navmar / L3-BAI Mako unmanned air system according to a report from the US National Research Council evaluating the Pentagon’s Quick Reaction Special Projects Program.
The report, ‘Experimentation and Rapid Prototyping in Support of Counterterrorism’, is currently being made available by the National Research council in draft form pending release of final version later this year.
It says that a Reaction Special Projects Program predicated on the use of a Jadoo Power fuel cell has seen an unspecified USN UAS type modified and fielded by SOCOM.
“Navy UAS with Jadoo power supplies are currently deployed in support of SOCOM units” it says but provides no further elaboration
Last month Jadoo Power announced that its UAV-100 fuel cell system had been used to power the payload and avionics suite aboard a Mako UAS during a 13 August flight test conducted by the Office of Navy Research (ONR) at the US Army’s Yuma proving ground in Arizona.
“The Mako flew for more than an hour and consumed 8 grams of compressed hydrogen gas” according to a Jadoo Power media release issued 13 October. “The UAV-100 fuel cell system provided 63 watts of power to the avionics and to the nose camera and video transmitter payload during the entire flight.”
Integration of the cell into the Mako was carried out by Kuchera Engineering. Pennsylvania State University’s Applied Research Laboratory was also involved in the tests.
Mako has 7hr endurance with its propulsion system based on a 3W piston engine.
Jadoo advised that “the flight test successfully demonstrated the airworthiness of the UAV-100 to withstand launch, trajectory accelerations, landing, and the effects of the operational environment. The fuel cell is forward compatible with advanced hydrogen storage technologies that have the potential to increase payload endurance time by up to 300%. The potential of this payload duration improvement has profound implications for increasing the payload capability of Class 2 UAVs. In addition, this fuel cell technology is scalable to any UAV platform.”
The NRC report describes the cell as “reusable and provides cost savings over traditional batteries, and its handling does not require hazardous materials procedures”.
Mako is one of a number of purpose-developed UAS commissioned by the US Navy to support SOCOM requirements and has seen service in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
