A Simplified Design, Control and Power Management of Fuel Cell Vehicles

In the automotive industry, design processes always start with modeling and simulation for fast and cost-effective design prototype validation. Thereafter these simulations must be validated. Electric vehicles feature a wide range of components from different domains with controllers. One of the challenges in modeling and simulation of these vehicles lies in the integration of these diverse components into a single simulation environment. In this paper, an electric vehicle model is implemented along with an integrated hybrid storage system in MATLAB/Simulink. The hybrid energy storage system encompasses a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system and a Lithium-ion battery, which are linked together via a current-regulated DC-DC converter. The simulated fuel cell vehicle model allows us to explore different power management strategies. Specifically, in order to improve the fuel cell stack efficiency and avoid damages to the fuel cell due to peak loads, a simple power-flow control strategy that allows us to operate the fuel cell on demand using a bypass contactor is evaluated. In order to validate the fuel cell vehicle model and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed power control strategy, numerous simulations are performed using highway drive cycles. Finally, the simulation results are compared with that of a traditional fuel cell vehicle model.