Lviv engineers bring technologies from Asia to Ukraine to produce 10,000 batteries for combat drones day
Drone Industry
The China Drone Exhibition, the world’s largest UAV exhibition, known as the "Oscars" of the drone industry, took place in Shenzhen on 21-23 May. It is where companies developing technologies for the next generation of UAVs gather, from batteries and motors to heavy drones and automated factories. The Lviv-based team Pawell Battery was the only Ukrainian representative in the drone battery segment.
One of the main results of the trip was technologies for a new class of heavy UAVs capable of carrying up to 200 kg of cargo, company representatives told Censor.NET’s Drone Industry project.
For comparison, most well-known Ukrainian drones today operate with payloads of up to 15-25 kg.
These are no longer classic reconnaissance UAVs, but a separate class of drones for logistics and transport: delivering gear, equipment and ammunition, or carrying out evacuation tasks in the rear.
"Such platforms could change the very approach to logistics: delivering cargo faster, involving fewer people and operating where conventional logistics are more difficult or impossible due to constant shelling," Pawell co-founder Pavlo Yesyp explained.
Lighter batteries, solutions for UGVs twice as cheap and 30% more range: what else Ukrainian engineers brought from Asia
Another result of the trip was new battery technologies for drones.
New-generation battery cells with an energy density of more than 500 Wh/kg were publicly presented at the exhibition for the first time. According to engineers, such solutions make it possible to reduce battery weight by about 10% without losing capacity.
For a drone, this is critical: every gram saved means either additional minutes in the air or more payload. That is why such cells could increase the flight range of Ukrainian drones by 15-30%.
For reference, Pawell’s previous record was 197 km of continuous flight by a Postman UAV with a combat payload of 15 kg. After hitting the target, the drone returned with about 10% of its energy reserve remaining.
In fact, the value of Pawell’s developments lies in the fact that batteries are becoming not just a component, but a technology that turns relatively simple drones costing several hundred dollars into long-range systems capable of operating hundreds of kilometers away.
Another result was agreements on new battery chemistries. Pawell Battery will become one of the first teams in the world to receive these solutions for testing after certification is completed.
At the same time, the team agreed to test cheaper chemistries for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). Their implementation could reduce battery costs by 20-40%.
"In fact, we are working in two areas. The first is lightweight batteries for long-range drones. The second is more affordable batteries for mass-scale tasks, where production speed and volumes are important," Pavlo Yesyp says.
Factories producing 10,000 batteries a day
During the trip, the Pawell Battery team visited five production facilities and saw factories capable of producing up to 10,750 battery packs daily.
The team’s main conclusion is that it is not enough to create a good drone. One must be able to quickly manufacture large batches. That is why the team is already starting to implement some of the solutions adopted from Asian production facilities in Ukraine. The expected result is a roughly 30% acceleration in production in the coming months.
At the same time, over the three days of the exhibition, the team worked through nine huge halls, visited five production facilities and held talks with 11 manufacturers.
This resulted in new partnerships and direct agreements that give Ukrainian developers access to components that had previously been difficult to obtain.
"We saw how production facilities work where the human factor is minimized and speed and precision are taken to a completely different level. Today, it is not only a strong engineering idea that wins. What wins is the ability to scale production quickly," Pavlo Yesyp summed up.
