Advanced DC-link voltage regulation of fuel-cell electric vehicle

Purpose This paper investigates the DC-Link voltage regulation of fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) with hybrid power source (HPS). The HPS consists of fuel cell (FC) as the main source and ultracapacitor (UC) as the auxiliary source in order to compensate for the slow dynamics of FC in transient conditions. The system is a multiconverter structure which is comprised of a boost DC/DC converter and a buck-boost converter connecting FC and UC to DC-link respectively. Design/methodology/approach The FCEV is modeled dynamically, considering the nonlinear behavior of HPS and multiconverter system. This paper presents an advanced control approach based on the control Lyapunov function (CLF) to regulate the DC-link voltage and impeccable tracking of UC current to its references. The stability analysis of closed loop system is also insured. Findings The performance of proposed controller is illustrated via Simulink® using numerical simulations under European Extra Urban Driving Cycle (EUDC). The simulation results show that the presented method is both satisfactory and consistent with expectation. Originality/value The proposed control method is state of the art in FCEV and improves the energy management system.