The power flow management within a hybrid fuel cell-powered vehicle during real-time operation is dealt with. The aim is the real-time control of the power distribution between the fuel cell and its associated energy storage to optimize the global hydrogen consumption while maintaining drivability. An original concept to convert the electrical power flow into equivalent hydrogen cost is proposed. On that basis, the previously developed control strategy (the equivalent consumption minimization strategy) is used to determine the real-time optimal power distribution by simple minimization of a univariate form. The approach presented has been applied to and implemented on a real fuel cell-super-capacitor powered vehicle. Experimental and simulation results are presented, demonstrating that this approach provides an improvement of fuel efficiency along with robustness and ease of implementation. Compared to the original map-based control strategy initially implemented in the vehicle, no significant fuel efficiency improvement is achieved with the ECMS (Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy) control strategy proposed. This is because the current fuel cell system does not leave much room for optimization. However, as opposed to the map-based control strategy, ECMS does not require any extended tuning procedure. The only tunable parameter is the time horizon, which defines the dynamic of the SOC (State Of Charge). It was shown that significant improvement in fuel efficiency may be expected from ECMS, provided that a slightly optimized fuel cell system is implemented. Moreover, the ECMS control strategy embeds a physical model of the fuel cell system in terms of hydrogen consumption vs. net output power characteristics. This feature makes ECMS inherently self-adaptive to achieve full efficiency benefit with any system configuration and operating condition such as temperature. ECMS also offers a very natural way to sustain the super-capacitors SOC within reasonable limits.
Optimal power management of an experimental fuel cell/supercapacitor-powered hybrid vehicle
Optimales Energiemanagement eines mit einer Brennstoffzelle und einem Superkondensator ausgestatteten Hybridtestfahrzeuges
Control Engineering Practice ; 13 , 1 ; 41-53
2005
13 Seiten, 12 Bilder, 7 Tabellen, 19 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English
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