Air supply control for proton exchange membrane fuel cells without explicit modeling
This work offers a computationally efficient, real-time adaptive control method for fuel cell air supply systems, which is attractive for industrial applications.
The paper proposes a model-free control strategy for regulating oxygen stoichiometry in proton exchange membrane fuel cell air supply systems. Numerical simulations show satisfactory performance under constant and variable stoichiometry scenarios with two current profiles, and robustness is demonstrated against significant parameter variations.
Our objective is to study the performance and robustness of the model-free strategy for controlling the oxygen stoichiometry of a fuel cell air supply system with a proton exchange membrane. After reviewing the literature on modeling and control of this process, the model-free approach appears to be a good candidate because, on the one hand, it allows straightforward real-time adaptation to track operating points and, on the other hand, it requires a low computational burden, which is attractive for industrial applications. Numerical simulations for two scenarios (constant and variable oxygen stoichiometry) with two current profiles reveal satisfactory performance of the model-free control law. The robustness is addressed by considering significant variations in the parameters of the proton exchange membrane air supply system.