Optimal Energy Management System for a Fuel Cell Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Sammanfattning: Fuel Cell Hybrid Electric vehicles are hybrid vehicles that consist of both fuel cells and batteries as energy conversion systems. The Energy Management System plays an important role in the operation of the fuel cell hybrid system, as it helps in reducing the hydrogen consumption of the system. This study investigates an optimal control algorithm with an aim to reduce the hydrogen consumption of the fuel cell system for five different drive cycles operating in Europe. Model Predictive Control(MPC) is used to solve the optimal control problem, by formalizing a look ahead controller, utilizing its receding horizon approach. The optimal controller analysis is compared with a conventional rule-based controller, by analysing the hybrid system over various battery and fuel cell sizes, on the basis of the overall hydrogen consumption. Firstly, a simplified system model is developed, by modelling the fuel cell system with respect to the efficiency curve of the hydrogen power and fuel cell power. The battery system model with its State of Charge(SOC) is coupled with the fuel cell model to form an objective function satisfying the power demand from the drive cycles. The MPC controller and the rule-based controller are implemented in MATLAB and the powersplit analysis is simulated for all five routes. The results show that the energy management system with the MPC controller optimizes the powertrain configuration efficiently, with preparing for the uphill or downhill, such that the battery SOC stays in its limits and the fuel cell operates in the most efficient range. This ensures operating over different types of drive cycles with the most efficient battery and fuel cell size, hence concluding with the MPC controller outperforming the rule-based one.