H2Bot
H2Bot
The electrification of mobile machinery is an important trend in sustainable agriculture. Unfortunately, the amount of energy typically stored in batteries is not yet sufficient in many application areas to ensure productive continuous machine use. Here, the complementary use of fuel cells for a significant increase in machine productivity with simultaneous CO2 neutrality represents a market-relevant measure. A clear advantage over battery-electric vehicles can be seen in the shortness of the refueling process and the increase in possible operating time. The duration for refueling hydrogen is similar to the duration of a refueling process with diesel fuel in current standard tractors. The fact that the number of research projects is nevertheless vanishingly small is due in part to the complexity of providing energy with fuel cells and the associated system components on the machine.
This project has built on an ongoing development in the field of autonomous vehicles with electric drive, which has the project name ELWOBOT II. In this project, which was commissioned by the LfULG, a vehicle with different forms of power delivery was developed- in 1st phase with a battery electric and a diesel electric power module. In the H2Bot project, a fuel cell-based power module from Proton-Motors was designed and built. Subsequently, all three power modules were put into operation and tested in field trials on the plantations of Obstland Dürrweitzschen AG. The aim of the project was to improve the fuel cell technology for agriculture and to test the system for various tasks in orchards, also in direct comparison with the existing alternatives for power supply.
At the Chair of Technical Design the modular alternatives for other machines are developed, as well as mainly the module design for Elwobot2.