Hylight, the airship that flies with hydrogen

The French startup Hylight has developed a small hydrogen airship to monitor sensitive sites such as gas pipelines and high-voltage lines.

Théo Hoenen, only 22 years old, but this aeronautics enthusiast has already founded the company Hylight (based in Strasbourg). It already has many international partners for its project: Berkeley SkyDeck, Cariplo Factory, Lendlease and PoliHub – Innovation Park & Startup Accelerator, Sparkmate, the Troyes University of Technology, and the Grand Est Region. Rumor has it that the famous Solar Impulse foundation, known for its solar airplane capable of a 43,000 km circumnavigation without a pilot on board, is interested in the project. And despite his young age, the Hylight startup has already managed to fly its airship in Italy.

But let’s go back to our famous project. The airship in question is a very compact model, weighing only 10 kg and thanks to its hydrogen technology, it can perform missions of up to 20 hours, which is already significant. In terms of distance, this corresponds to roughly 600 kilometers. Absolutely silent and emitting no pollutants, it is also more cost-effective in operation than a helicopter or an airplane. Like the latter, it can be equipped with surveillance accessories, such as 4K cameras, infrared cameras, Laser Remote Sensing (Lidar)…

A Gradual Increase in Power

“We have clean energy, but we are also much more energy-efficient than other vehicles. This allows us to have a much higher autonomy than, for example, drones or any other aerial vehicle“, explained Théo Hoenen to our colleagues from BFMTV.

At the time of writing these lines, four flying prototypes have already been built, and two additional units intended to convince Enedis (which manages the electrical grid in France) and Snam (leader in gas transport in Italy) are under construction. Stay tuned.

Read also: The autonomous hydrogen train on the rails