Improvement of Autonomy, Efficiency, and Stress of Fuel Cell Hybrid Electric Vehicle System Using Robust Controller

Abstract

Among issues facing the transportation sector today is the limited autonomy of electric vehicles, which are highly reliant upon energy storage systems. Considering this issue as the current research gap, researchers seek to prolong vehicle dependability through renewable-free and sustainable energy that tackles negative environmental impacts. This research exploits the electric vehicle’s kinetic energy to improve its performance and reliability. It uses fuel-cell resources and supercapacitors hybridized with lithium-ion batteries, in addition to DC generators connected to front wheels that convert their rotations into energy contributing to the vehicle’s overall power balance. A state machine-based energy management strategy computes fuel-cell setpoint power, while a dual-loop structure uses a super-twisting controller for DC bus voltage regulation and recovery, in addition to tracking banks’ setpoint currents. A speed controller-based artificial intelligence is proposed to reduce power losses and enable accurate tracking of running trajectory to improve vehicle mechanisms. The simulation results using Matlab Simulink software proved the proposed vehicle’s feasibility by adopting the free kinetic energy of additional DC generators that provided 28% of its total power requirements, resulting in superior supply efficiency reaching 98%. Thus, the stress on FC and battery was minimized by 21% and 10%, respectively, in addition to reducing fuel consumption by 39%, so the vehicle autonomy was extended, and its reliability was enhanced and supported, as targeted.

Key findings

• ▸Improved vehicle autonomy and efficiency
• ▸Enhanced reliability and performance using kinetic energy
• ▸Effective energy management strategy using state machine and dual-loop structure

Keywords

Identifiers

DOI

10.3390/su15075657

Journal

Sustainability

Year

2023