The Standards Map — Performance Parameters Across Applications

Last verified: September 11, 2026

Applications covered: eVTOL / powered-lift · drones / small UAS · humanoid robotics · UUV / subsea autonomous systems

Scope: Pack-level performance acceptance criteria — cycle life, charge and discharge rate, energy and power density, operating temperature envelope, SOH endpoints, and reserve policy — mapped by parameter class across all four applications. Safety parameters, transport eligibility, abuse-tolerance requirements, mechanical environment (vibration, shock, crush), environmental protection (IP rating), and EMC were covered in prior issues (Issue #6, Issue #12, Issue #13, and the individual application cards) and are not reopened here.

Sourcing convention: All standard and regulatory citations in this piece are Tier 1 (published standards or regulatory documents) unless explicitly labeled otherwise. Tier 3 design analyses and the GB/T 46460 commentary are labeled inline at point of use. Several Tier 1 standards (ISO 24352, IEC 62619, IEC 62620) were inspected through publicly accessible but uncontrolled reproductions rather than licensed editions; where this applies, the citation notes the access basis and instructs the reader to verify against the controlled text before committing a value to a DVP.

Standards and regulatory documents referenced:

• IEC 62619:2022 — Safety requirements for industrial secondary lithium cells and batteries
• IEC 62620:2014+A1:2023 — Performance requirements for industrial secondary lithium cells and batteries (stationary, motive including marine; excludes road vehicles)
• ISO 24352:2023 — Technical requirements for small unmanned aircraft electric energy systems (<25 kg MTOM)
• ASTM F3005-22 — Specification for batteries used in small UAS (production capacity check; no cycle-life or mission-performance tests)
• FAA AC 20-184 — Guidance on testing and installation of rechargeable lithium batteries on aircraft
• EASA Part-IAM, ED Decision 2025/010/R — AMC and GM for innovative air mobility operations, including energy reserve policy
• 14 CFR Part 194 — Powered-lift operations (FAA SFAR), including reserve-rule applicability
• 14 CFR §91.151 — VFR fuel/energy requirements
• MIL-PRF-32565C w/Amdt 2 — 24V rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, NATO 6T form factor, military ground vehicles
• ABS Rules for Underwater Vehicles, Jan 2025 — Building and classing underwater vehicles, systems, and hyperbaric facilities
• GB/T 46460-2025 — Lithium-ion cells and batteries for UAVs (Chinese national standard, effective May 1, 2026; performance clauses not available in authoritative public text)

Tier 3 design analyses referenced for eVTOL C-rate derivation: Yang et al. (2021), Fredericks et al. (2018), Park, Jeong, and Yee (2025), Yu et al. (2026). These are aircraft-sizing and mission analyses, not qualification standards.

The prior twelve issues of this series mapped safety qualification across these four platforms. Safety coverage ranged from layered (eVTOL) to borrowed (humanoid robotics) to partially governed (subsea). Performance parameters are more uniform: they are almost entirely ungoverned.

Standards bodies can reach consensus on how to measure capacity retention, or at what temperature to run a cycle test, because those are method questions with defensible answers independent of end use. What cycle count is acceptable, or what SOH threshold should trigger replacement, depends on mission profile, capacity margin, and consequence of failure — variables that differ by program and resist consensus. So a performance row in a DVP generally requires the engineering team to set the threshold, defend it, and cite whatever adjacent evidence supports the choice.

What follows maps each performance parameter class across the four applications. Each entry answers three questions: what the DVP needs, what governs it, and what's missing.

Cycle Life and Calendar Life

eVTOL / powered-lift. The DVP needs a cycle count at stated DOD, temperature, and mission-representative charge-discharge profile, with a capacity-retention acceptance criterion. No published aviation standard or regulatory document sets a propulsion-battery cycle-life minimum. FAA AC 20-184 §2.9.6 requires periodic capacity measurement and defers replacement scheduling to the battery OEM's maintenance manual. The cycle-life row is entirely program-defined.

The nearest numeric reference is IEC 62620:2014+A1:2023 §6.6.1, which specifies 500 cycles at 25°C ± 5°C to ≥60% rated capacity for industrial batteries (cited from publicly accessible summary; verify against licensed IEC text before DVP use). Its scope excludes aviation. Sixty percent retention at 500 cycles is also a low bar for an application where usable capacity sets both range and reserve, so borrowing it unadjusted would understate what the aircraft actually needs.

Drones / small UAS. ISO 24352:2023 §5.2.6 supplies an 80%-of-initial-capacity endpoint for cycle-life testing at 23°C ± 3°C, using the manufacturer's charge method and the average hovering current or declared cycling current (cited from publicly accessible summary; verify against licensed ISO text before DVP use). The cycle count itself is manufacturer-declared — the standard defines when the test stops, not how many cycles are acceptable. ASTM F3005-22 contains no cycle-life test. An uncontrolled commentary on GB/T 46460-2025 (Tier 3) reports 400 cell cycles and 300 pack cycles to ≥80% at 20°C ± 5°C, but the commentary expressly disclaims accuracy and no authoritative clause reproduction was located. Treat it as a verification lead, not a DVP-ready citation. The Issue #9 drone card mapped the seams among the ASTM, ISO, and UL frameworks; the 90% capacity criterion and 80% cycle-test endpoint are additions from the present research.

Humanoid robotics. No dedicated standard exists. The Issue #10 humanoid card established that the qualification framework is borrowed from service-robot safety (ISO 13482), industrial battery safety (IEC 62619), and environmental test methods. IEC 62619 is a safety standard and contains no cycle-life requirement. The adjacent industrial performance document is IEC 62620, whose 500-cycle / 60%-retention test is the nearest borrowable reference. The row is program-defined; any threshold used should be labeled as borrowed and scoped to the application's actual duty profile.

UUV / subsea. ABS underwater-vehicle rules §10/11.5.8 requires replacement to consider manufacturer recommendations and performance deterioration but sets no cycle count or capacity-retention percentage. For autonomous vehicles, §19/33.3 requires adequate capacity for mission duration without specifying degradation limits. Program-defined.

Calendar life is ungoverned across all four applications. IEC 62620 §6.6.2 includes a 90-day standby endurance test (≥85% rated capacity at declared temperature), and MIL-PRF-32565C requires five-year service life and two-year warehouse storage. Both are adjacent-domain references. Neither was written for any of these four platforms.

Charge and Discharge Rate

eVTOL / powered-lift. The DVP needs C-rates by mission phase — vertical climb, transition, cruise, descent, landing hover — at stated SOC, temperature, and pack configuration. No published standard or regulatory document sets these values.

The commonly cited ranges of 2.5–4.5C hover and 0.75–1.5C cruise trace to Yang et al. (2021) (Tier 3), who assumed roughly 200 Wh/kg pack specific energy and a 0.3 battery mass fraction. Change the assumptions and the numbers move. Fredericks et al. (2018) (Tier 3) reported about 4C at takeoff and 4.8C at landing for a 73-mile mission; Park, Jeong, and Yee (2025) (Tier 3) modeled 4.2C at landing in an air-cooled sizing case; Yu et al. (2026) (Tier 3) estimated 2.0–2.7C per pack in a 2026 flight demonstration of a 210 kg-class aircraft. The spread reflects differences in vehicle mass, battery fraction, and mission profile, which is why no standards body has attempted to fix a single value. A DVP that borrows any of these numbers should cite the specific study and state which configuration assumptions produced it. The Issue #7 eVTOL card noted the absence of standard C-rate thresholds; the present research supplies the originating studies and their assumptions.

Drones / small UAS. ISO 24352 §5.2.5 tests capacity at rates from 0.5 It through the aircraft's maximum rate, requiring ≥90% of nominal capacity (cited from publicly accessible summary; verify against licensed ISO text before DVP use). The rate itself is aircraft-defined. ASTM F3005 defines C-rating conceptually (§3.3.1) but prescribes no numeric value. The GB/T 46460 commentary (Tier 3) reports a 3 It high-rate test with ≥95% cell / ≥90% pack retention, again not DVP-ready without controlled-text verification.

Humanoid robotics. No standard addresses charge or discharge rates for humanoid packs. The duty profile — high peak power for locomotion transients, moderate sustained draw during walking, regenerative return during descent — has no published standard characterization at any level. Program-defined.

UUV / subsea. ABS §10/11.5.7 requires charging per manufacturer specifications. No discharge-rate requirement, C-rate limit, or mission-phase rate profile is specified. Program-defined.

Energy Density and Power Density

No reviewed standard sets a gravimetric (Wh/kg) or volumetric (Wh/L) energy-density floor for any of the four applications. MIL-PRF-32565C controls capacity (55–90 Ah by subclass) and maximum mass (30 kg) separately for 6T ground-vehicle batteries. Those two limits bound energy density arithmetically, but the document states no energy-density requirement, and its scope does not reach these applications in any case.

For eVTOL, the Yang et al. analysis assumed roughly 200 Wh/kg at pack level; the Park et al. sizing study produced 127.5 Wh/kg for their modeled configuration. Both are design inputs embedded in specific vehicle architectures, not acceptance criteria.

Power density is similarly ungoverned. IEC 62620 §6.3.3 tests high-rate permissible current at ≥6 It (M-type) or ≥20 It (H-type) for 5 seconds, with a ≥95% subsequent capacity check — an industrial reference, not an application-specific requirement.

This parameter class is program-defined across all four applications. No external benchmark exists to catch an error in the derivation from mission analysis and mass budget to energy-density target. Document it as an internal design input with its assumptions stated, not as an inherited threshold.

Operating Temperature Envelope

eVTOL / powered-lift. No aviation battery standard specifies an operating temperature range for propulsion packs. EASA and FAA require the applicant to define the operating envelope and demonstrate safety and performance within it. The DVP sets the range based on the aircraft's thermal management architecture and intended operating environments.

Drones / small UAS. ISO 24352 §5.2.5 tests capacity at the manufacturer's declared minimum operating temperature, defaulting to 0°C if undeclared, and at the maximum, defaulting to 45°C if undeclared (cited from publicly accessible summary; verify against licensed ISO text before DVP use). Those defaults function as a soft floor and ceiling for manufacturers who declare nothing, but they are test-condition defaults, not mandated operating boundaries. The GB/T 46460 commentary (Tier 3) reports a low-temperature test at −10°C ± 2°C with ≥80% retention.

Humanoid robotics. No standard. ISO 13482 addresses service-robot safety and does not specify battery operating temperatures. Program-defined.

UUV / subsea. ABS requires temperature monitoring (§10/11.5.4) but sets no numeric operating range for the battery. The thermal environment is dominated by seawater temperature and pressure-housing thermal management, both program-specific. MIL-PRF-32565C's −46°C to 71°C operating range is a ground-vehicle specification; applying it subsea without acknowledging the different heat-transfer environment is a scope error.

SOH Endpoints

The DVP needs a numeric capacity-retention threshold below which the pack is retired from service or requires refurbishment. No reviewed standard sets a field-replacement SOH for any of the four applications.

The closest available values are test-endpoint definitions, not retirement instructions. ISO 24352 uses 80% of initial capacity as the laboratory end-of-life boundary for cycle testing. MIL-PRF-32565C uses 70% of baseline capacity as the minimum during its 1,000-cycle ground-vehicle endurance qualification. These serve different purposes — the first says when a cycle test stops, the second says what capacity must be maintained throughout a qualification sequence — and neither was drafted as an in-service replacement rule.

FAA AC 20-184 §§2.9.6.3–2.9.6.4 requires periodic capacity measurement for safety-critical batteries and assigns the replacement schedule to the OEM maintenance manual. ABS §10/11.5.8 requires replacement consideration based on deterioration but publishes no percentage. For humanoid robotics, nothing addresses SOH endpoints at all.

The SOH row is program-defined in every DVP across these four applications. The 80% and 70% values are available as referenced starting points, provided the team justifies the chosen threshold against the application's actual capacity margin, mission criticality, and degradation trajectory.

Reserve Policy

eVTOL / powered-lift. EASA Part-IAM AMC3 UAM.OP.VCA.191 sets contingency energy at 10% of planned trip energy; AMC4 requires final reserve sufficient for at least five minutes of flight at go-around configuration. Under the FAA powered-lift SFAR, aircraft demonstrating vertical-landing capability along the entire route use the rotorcraft VFR reserve (20 minutes at normal cruise); others use the airplane rule (30 minutes day / 45 minutes night). All of these are aircraft operational dispatch requirements. They constrain how much energy must remain available at specific mission points. They do not specify a pack-level reserve SOC, a minimum usable energy in kWh, or a qualification test.

The pack DVP has to translate those operational rules into testable energy-availability requirements at end-of-life SOH, and that conversion depends on the degradation model, the assumed SOH at end of service, and the relationship between SOC and deliverable power at that SOH. The reserve policy row and the SOH endpoint row interact here. Neither can be finalized independently of the other.

Drones / small UAS. ISO 24352 §5.3.1 requires low-energy warnings sufficient to support recovery action but leaves the warning SOC and remaining-energy margin to the manufacturer.

Humanoid robotics and UUV / subsea. No standard addresses reserve policy. ABS §19/33.3 requires adequate capacity for mission duration without specifying a margin.

Reserve policy is program-defined across all four applications. eVTOL is the most constrained case, since operational reserves exist as regulatory requirements, but the translation from flight-time reserves to pack-level energy and SOC thresholds remains the applicant's work.

Consolidated Gaps Summary

ISO 24352 is the most prescriptive document found for any of the four applications, and even it stops short: 90% capacity at rated discharge and an 80% cycle-life endpoint, with the cycle count, mission profile, C-rate, DOD, operating envelope, and reserve all left to the manufacturer.

Ungoverned across all four applications:

• Energy density and power density. No standard sets a Wh/kg, Wh/L, or W/kg floor.
• SOH field-replacement threshold. Test-endpoint definitions exist (80% in ISO 24352, 70% in MIL-PRF-32565C); no application-specific in-service retirement value is published.
• Reserve policy at the pack level. Operational reserves exist for eVTOL; pack-level translation is program-defined everywhere.
• Calendar life. No application-specific calendar-life acceptance criterion was found.

Partially governed in one or two applications, ungoverned elsewhere:

• Cycle life. ISO 24352 supplies an endpoint definition and test method for drones; IEC 62620 supplies an adjacent industrial reference. eVTOL, humanoid, and UUV have nothing application-specific.
• Charge and discharge rate. ISO 24352 tests at manufacturer-declared rates with a retention criterion. eVTOL C-rates are outputs of Tier 3 sizing analyses carrying configuration-specific assumptions. Humanoid and UUV are ungoverned.
• Operating temperature. ISO 24352 provides test-condition defaults (0°C / 45°C) where the manufacturer declares nothing. MIL-PRF-32565C specifies −46°C to 71°C for ground vehicles. The other three applications are ungoverned.

Implication for DVP construction. On performance rows, the engineer is defining a threshold rather than retrieving one. The standard, where it exists, supplies the test method and the endpoint definition. The acceptance value comes from the program's mission analysis, system mass budget, customer requirements, or an adjacent-domain reference explicitly labeled as borrowed. Cite the source of the acceptance value separately from the source of the test method. In most cases they are not the same document, and a reviewer three years from now will need to know which one moved.

GB/T 46460-2025 may narrow some of these gaps for drone applications if its controlled text confirms the thresholds reported in uncontrolled commentary. Until an authoritative clause reproduction is available, it remains a verification lead. No standards body working group was identified as actively drafting performance acceptance criteria for humanoid robotics or UUV battery packs.