Mobile Robots Enhanced by microtubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (mSOFCs)

Abstract

Mobile robots are limited by their battery energy storage. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells running on propane or other liquid fuels can enhance the battery robot range by an order of magnitude while allowing rapid refilling. The need is to improve the system power to weight (P/W) ratio. Moving to smaller diameter microtubular SOFCs (mSOFCs) is beneficial in raising the stack P/W, but the system components including thermal insulation, cathode air heater and reformer are also important. This paper describes experiments on a 100W mSOFC system to show that 100Wkg-1 power density can be obtained by improving system components and integration. This system could power a small fixed wing Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) but needs to be improved by a further factor 5 to fly a helicopter.