DLR, Deutz partner for hydrogen applications in off-highway vehicles

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)) and Deutz (a Cologne-based engine manufacturer) are partnered for developing new solutions for hydrogen applications in the construction equipment and agricultural machinery sectors.

Both partners will focus on the ‘green construction site’ that involve converting existing technologies used in building applications to make them low-carbon or even carbon-free. The DLR’s technology marketing team and the Deutz Innovation Center are coordinating the joint activities.

The partners will also scope out the necessary parameters, including technological and commercial, for making off-highway vehicles (excavators, wheel loaders, tractors, crawlers, and combine harvesters) carbon-neutral. These vehicles carry out specific tasks and have varying requirements in energy consumption, power output, fuel capacity, and operating time. The partners will ask machinery operators about their needs, particularly about vehicle data, machine variants, and load and usage profiles.

The alliance between Deutz and DLR is the result of the DLR.InnovationHub, which brings together players from research and commerce.

In the next stage, the partners will compare and evaluate different technological solutions, focusing on energy logistics for selected application scenarios in agriculture and construction, aiming to come up with solutions that will allow the vehicles used in these scenarios to be powered by hydrogen drives. The Deutz-DLR collaboration will also look at solutions for mobile, intelligent, and connected fueling systems.

Professor Karsten Lemmer, a member of the DLR Executive Board, said, “Formats such as the DLR.InnovationHub, and the partnerships that result from it, are how the DLR fulfils its mission of turning research into commercially viable innovations.”

Dr Ing. Markus Müller, Deutz’s CTO, said, “The aim is to speed up progress in making hydrogen drives viable for the off-highway segment, and we will be combining our expertise and R&D capabilities to achieve this.”