Southborough-based Protonex Corp. has received a $500,000 contract award from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) for the development of fuel cell systems for small unmanned aerial vehicles.
The most recent award is an extension of an existing contract Protonex has with the NRL. Work will focus on incorporating and testing Protonex’ fuel cell system within the unmanned vehicles.
The battery-powered systems currently used to power unmanned aerial vehicles only have enough strength for one to three hours of flight, according to Protonex. The fuel cell system designed by the Southborough firm have demonstrated up to four times the flight duration.
The drones that Protonex hopes to power can be used for surveillance, search and rescue and chemical/biological monitoring.
