Launchpoint EPS HPS400 hybrid powertrain | Dossier calculating how to get the engine to that output. If, for example, your UAV drops out of cruise to hover mid-air at high power, our generator can certainly go from zero to full torque and power near instantly – ICEs can’t,” Ricci says. To compensate, the battery supplies an instantaneous output to satisfy the load, the PMU ramps up the engine’s shaft power, the generator turns that into AC, and the PMU then rectifies it into DC to replenish the battery as required by the load. “When the load drops again, the battery absorbs the excess energy from the generator during the seconds it takes to de-throttle the engine,” Ricci adds. “If the engine tries to over-rev, we can kill the ignition – we have rev limiters in there, like those in high-end sports cars, so multiple points of over-rev protection.” The PMU also tracks cylinder head temperature (CHT) and exhaust gas temperature (EGT) sensors to govern the fans and liquid pumps connected to the radiators. If the engine overheats, it can alternatively reduce shaft power (without shutting down completely) and increase the battery discharge rate to compensate while the engine cools. LaunchPoint works with customers to size battery packs for at least a few minutes of reserve energy, to allow continued safe flight and landing even if the engine should seize entirely mid-flight. Future As of writing, LaunchPoint is working in three principle markets for hybridised and electric powertrain. The first two are large, DoD aircraft integrations and urban air-mobility companies, with projects including motors for high-power pumps and actuators, and radial-flux designs. The third, and potentially largest for the California-based company, is precision crop-spraying UAVs, where one customer is working with LaunchPoint to achieve extended flight with payloads of 60-100 kg or more, making hybrid power vital for its operations. “Longer term, those and other industrial UAVs are going to get bigger and bigger, and hybrid powertrains scale up better than they scale down,” Ricci observes. “We don’t know how big we will go, as megawatt piston engines and turbine engines both have their respective difficulties, but a lot of agspray drones are coming out with 20 m wingspans and have to cover vast acres. “They will eventually reach full aircraft size, with 3000-4000 lb MTOWs to carry 500-1000 lb of agricultural product, but for now, we’ll start with UAVs at 60100 kg payloads, and those will grow as fast as the FAA allows them. Luckily, uncrewed spray flights get clearance waivers quickly, mainly because they fly low, and always within line-of-sight (LOS). And, once there’s a Part 107-style rule for BVLOS flights by big, heavy drones, that is going to open up a huge world of new use-cases for our powertrains.” Until then, the company has been awarded a Phase One SBIR by AFWERX, a directorate of the US Air Force Research Laboratory, to develop a modular, hybrid Genset with up to three DHA120-like systems working in parallel to power a Group 4 or 5 UAS (defined as having MTOWs of over 1,320 lb, or 598 kg). Between that, the burgeoning tide of agricultural UASs, and its other endusers, one can expect LaunchPoint EPS to be kept very busy in the years ahead. 77 Uncrewed Systems Technology | June/July 2024 As the ironless rotors spin about the ironless stator, a surface friction effect impels air into the rotor-stator gaps. The air runs circularly and turbulently to cool them before being ejected by centripetal force LaunchPoint’s PMU runs the engine, DHA120, and batteries to satisfy load demands from the UAV, while also performing thermal management and other key tasks
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