This week’s news round up looks at how ranchers are using drones to get detailed maps of their livestock’s habitat, the progress hydrogen fuel cells are making in the drone industry, and a promising student-led startup designing a heavy-lift drone platform.

Livestock Habitat Mapping

Ranchers in Alberta, Canada are using drones to assist in habitat management for their herds of cattle. This method was discussed recently at Ag Drone Summit by Edward Bork, a professor in the Faculty of Agriculture, Life and Environment Sciences at the University of Alberta.

Ranchers need specific data on what areas of their land are best for cattle to graze on, and drones are helping to collect that data in an efficient way. The traditional way to collect this data is through satellite imagery, but ranchers are testing out how drones can capture images better.

“We can put those platforms (RGB) onto drones, or UAVs, and we can collect a lot of information on that. However, we also have the advantage with drones to be able to collect light detection and ranging data. This is essentially laser-based data,” stated the article.

Drones can produce high resolution habitat maps that provide data on grazing capacity or patterns which help ranchers decide where is best to move their cattle.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell-Powered Drones

Fuel cell-powered drones are gaining significant traction across both military and commercial sectors, with applications ranging between medical emergencies, infrastructure inspection, search and rescue, fire management, and even parcel delivery. According to the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association (FCHEA), fuel cell drones offer key advantages over battery-powered UAVs such as being lighter, quieter, and far more efficient. Hydrogen fuel celled drones deliver longer flight times and greater coverage on less fuel without sacrificing payload capacity.

On the storage side, Luxfer Gas Cylinders supplies lightweight composite hydrogen tanks for drone integration, while H2MOF offers a solid-state alternative using advanced porous materials that store hydrogen at low pressure and ambient temperature — a promising option for reducing onboard weight even further. Most current fuel cell drones rely on compressed hydrogen stored at high pressure, and much of the ongoing R&D is focused on increasing storage capacity and reducing overall vehicle weight to push flight times even longer.

Students Startup Company Wins Funding

Aeronautical university, Embry-Riddle, recently hosted their annual “Launch Your Venture” competition which awards seed funding to university student-led startups.

This year, one of the winners was Mayott Aerospace, a company dedicated to developing a heavy-lift UAS platform capable of carrying 275 pounds and built for disaster response, infrastructure repair, and defense operations. The group of students behind the company were awarded $10,000 prize to put towards getting their operations off ground.

The students already have solid plans for how they will use the funding as they head into their next chapter, the DARPA Heavy Lift Challenge. The prize money will allow them to build out their prototype for this competition.

The article stated the drive behind the inception of the company in the words of its CEO, Andrew Mayott.

“Heavy lifting remains one of the largest unsolved challenges in drone technology. Mayott Aerospace is focused on solving this problem by developing a drone platform capable of transporting meaningful payloads while maintaining stability, endurance and operational reliability.”