Advanced Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy for Fuel Cell Hybrid Electric Vehicles

This paper aims to develop an Advanced Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (AECMS) for efficient fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles (FCHEV). The Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) is one of the most feasible solutions for hybrid electric vehicles as it has less complexity and low computational cost in making the optimal control decision. However, typical ECMS designs with fixed gain use could not enhance an optimal energy control when dealing with multi decisive factors for highly non-linear and uncertain systems like FCHEVs. To address this control challenge, the AECMS is developed as the combination of the ECMS and an adaptive equivalence factor to optimally split the energy flow between the fuel cell and battery in the FCHEV. First, a cost function is formulated based on two key objectives which are power consumptions of the fuel cell and battery, the equivalence factor and a set of soft and hard constraints, considering the number of fuel cell start/stop, fuel cell optimal operating range, state of charge (SoC) range, temperature ranges and power limits. Second, the adaptive equivalence factor is newly designed as the combination of states and dynamics of the fuel cell and battery and corresponding weighting factors. Third, fuzzy inferences are derived to adjust online the weighting factors in an adaptive manner according to the working conditions of the energy sources, subsequently improving the overall vehicle energy efficiency and maintaining the battery SoC while prolonging their lifetime. Numerical simulations using a FCHEV model have been carried out under UDDS and HWFET drive cycles to illustrate the superior performance of the AECMS against the traditional ECMS.