Optimal power management of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles

This paper describes an optimal power management approach for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV), thereby providing improved performance. The aim is the control of power distribution between energy sources to optimize the energy consumption while maintaining optimal operating conditions of the HFCV. Simulation studies of control analysis, configuration setup and analysis for better energy management strategies are carried out using simulation tools developed at the University of Glamorgan (UoG). The simulation tools are used to analyze the effect of operating conditions and energy demand in hybrid HFCV. Design of the optimal control strategy for sourcing the energy are considered in order to reduce the energy consumption of the HFCV. The underlying idea of this design is to use a supervisory control architecture for HFCV. The supervisory controller is designed to tackle optimal fuel economy and drivability issues. The results indicate that this approach provides an improvement in performance and fuel efficiency to the HFCV considered in this study.