Air supply control for proton exchange membrane fuel cells without explicit modeling

TL;DR

This paper investigates a model-free control strategy for managing oxygen supply in proton exchange membrane fuel cells, emphasizing real-time adaptation and robustness without explicit system modeling.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effectiveness and robustness of a model-free control approach for fuel cell air supply, reducing computational complexity and avoiding explicit system modeling.

Findings

Satisfactory control performance in simulated scenarios

Robustness against parameter variations

Low computational burden for real-time application

Abstract

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.