Remaining useful life prognostic-based energy management strategy for multi-fuel cell stack systems in automotive applications
Wabi Réné Bankati, Loïc Boulon, Samir Jemeï
Abstract
To achieve the 8000-h proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack (PEM FCS) life target set by the U.S DoE and promote fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles (FCHEVs) massive introduction in the automotive market, using multi-fuel cell stack (MFCS) systems instead of single-fuel cell stack systems seems to be an interesting solution that deserves to be explored. MFCS systems' concept combines several small FCSs modules instead of using a single high-powered FCS module. The modularity in such systems can be exploited through energy management to improve their durability and extend their good energy-efficiency power range. However, FCSs' multiplicity makes it challenging to implement effective energy management strategies (EMSs). This paper proposes a remaining useful life (RUL) prognostic-based EMS to extend MFCS systems' lifetime while keeping their hydrogen consumption reasonable. For this purpose, a prognostic algorithm is developed to predict PEM FCSs' RUL in real-world automotive application scenarios. Then a rule-based EMS allocates the demand between stacks using prognostic results. The proposed strategy's performance is evaluated on a hybrid MFCS/battery system using Matlab/Simulink's environment. Simulation results show that implementing the proposed strategy instead of conventional EMSs can extend MFCS systems' lifetime by at least a factor of 2.35 while keeping their hydrogen consumption reasonable. © 2001 Elsevier Science. All rights reserved.