Doosan Mobility International Launches 2nd Generation Hydrogen Drone in Europe: the next step in Doosan’s hydrogen drone innovation.

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby

This past Friday, Korean company Doosan Mobility International (DMI) launched its 2nd generation hydrogen drone DS30W for the European market during a meeting of the Maritime Emerging & Enabling Technologies Innovation Park(METIP) in Den Helder, the Netherlands. Following a demonstration of the hydrogen drone by DroneQ Robotics, a cooperation agreement was signed to establish the joint investigation of applications in the maritime and offshore industry, in order to support the North Sea energy transition.

Fuel cell powered drones possess the potential to transform sustainable unmanned aviation. Their longer flight time over battery powered drones makes a wide variety of new applications possible, including the inspection of pipelines over long distances or the delivery of urgent goods to offshore installations at sea.

Doosan’s Hydrogen Drone History

DMI is on the forefront of the development of hydrogen drones. The company announced its first hydrogen drone, the DS30, in 2020. The DS30 boasted an impressive flight time of over two hours. As the successor to this model, the new DS30W features a better wind resistance.

Following the DS30W’s first official European flight, DMI revealed that it has joined METIP and has signed an agreement with METIP and DroneQ Robotics to jointly investigate potential applications for hydrogen drones through testing, demonstrating and validating use cases and pilots in the maritime and offshore industry in the North Sea. This encompasses the examination of possibilities provided by new European regulations for the deployment of unmanned and autonomous systems.

DMI is making the DS30W available for testing and demonstration flights, with METIP facilitating the use cases and pilot projects and DroneQ Robotics offering technical assistance as the preferred operator.

“The second generation hydrogen drone from Doosan Mobility International has a flight time of two hours and is resistant to adverse weather conditions, making it ideal for complex maritime applications such as inspecting offshore installations or performing search and rescue missions,” said John Troch, co-founder of DroneQ.

The North Sea holds an integral role in the energy transition. The extensive development of offshore wind farms and other renewable energy sources, the existing offshore oil & gas extraction, the production of hydrogen and the underground storage of CO2 requires an integrated approach and integration of the assorted systems for energy production. Offshore logistics serve an especially important role in the safe and efficient operation of the offshore energy system. Hydrogen drones have the potential to play a key role in this.

“Innovative, safe, sustainable and efficient solutions using emerging & enabling technologies make a relevant contribution to a successful energy transition in the North Sea and its acceleration”, said John Spee, project manager at METIP.

Ian attended Dominican University of California, where he received a BA in English in 2019. With a lifelong passion for writing and storytelling and a keen interest in technology, he is now contributing to DroneLife as a staff writer.