SOUTHBOROUGH, Mass., Nov. 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and co-developer AeroVironment announced a recently documented record flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle.
Officials say the successful test on AeroVironment's Puma UAV system utilized Massachusetts-based Protonex Technology Corp.'s advanced fuel cell system. "The Puma UAV system flew continuously for over seven hours and was powered by the latest generation of Protonex' ProCore UAV fuel cell system," the company said.
The flight demonstration resulted in a substantial increase in flight time for the small UAV with approximately two hours of flight time over the previous Puma class of UAV norm.
"This unprecedented UAV flight time demonstrated on the Puma platform represents another significant milestone in the progress we have made on our UAV power systems," Scott Pearson, Protonex chief executive officer, said in a statement.
"This achievement comes as a direct result of our focused effort, working with AeroVironment and the AFRL to advance UAV endurance and payload capacity well beyond what is achievable with existing battery and other fuel cell platforms. We look forward to continuing this considerable progress with our partners to extend the reach of UAV technology to other military and commercial markets."
Protonex has focused its ProCore UAV system developments for platforms like the Puma. Company officials say the system's quiet profile enables the potential of up to five times the energy density of advanced military batteries.
