For some time now, green technology has been becoming more and more impressive. The longer we let the experts behind tools like drone technology work, the more innovative that they actually are. For example, hydrogen drones are already a reality. People from all across the world are working to make a hydrogen drones the standard – and a specific fuel cell drone just completed an amazing ocean crossing.

The main problem with most drones is that they tend to have weak and limited battery life. Most have around a 30-minute battery life, meaning they need to make short journeys before returning out to be charged. However, a hydrogen-powered drone was sent out across an ocean journey that would take it around 1h 43m. The drone managed to make the trip, which was seen as a huge success and further proof of the lasting power of hydrogen fuel cells.

The exercise was part of a trio of teams working together; Guinn Partners, Skyfire Consulting, and the US Department of Health. They worked alongside Doosan Mobility Innovation, who supplied them with the DS30 octocopter powered by using a hydrogen fuel cell.

This allows the drone to work using a temperature-controlled payload platform. It was able to take some bacteria samples from a hospital based in St. Croix on the Caribbean all the way to a testing facility on nearby St. Thomas. This was a whopping 43 miles of ocean to be covered, and the copter was able to land with still around 30 minutes worth of air time left in its tank.

This just goes to show where such technology is taking us. With the fact that things like biological fluid samples can take as long as a week to be transported, this would allow for much faster delivery of such samples. It would be much easier to use these small, unmanned vehicles to move around small samples than risk using large manned aircraft. Given the rapid spread of some infections in the area of testing in particular, time and truly be of the essence.

So, with the cost and time effective benefit of using drones, this is something we could see rolled out in the future. As soon as hydrogen fuel celled drones become the norm, we could see a total transformation in how objects are transported to and from their chosen destinations in the future. Exciting?