(486b) Energy Storage Technology Selection for Hybrid Fuel Cell Vehicles: A Globally Optimal Control System Based Approach

The notion of a hybrid fuel cell vehicle is promising in the sense that size and cost reductions for the fuel cell unit can be achieved by off-loading much of the peak power requirements to auxiliary energy storage devices (either a battery or super-capacitor). However, to maximize the efficacy of such a system, a power management coordination unit (or controller) will need to be designed. Additionally, the design of this controller and its ability to meet drive cycle requirements are dramatically influenced by system design decisions concerning the size of the fuel cell and energy storage devices. In a previous AIChE presentation, we illustrated a globally optimal scheme to simultaneously design the controller while sizing the fuel cell and energy storage units. This approach, in which system design decisions were driven by the capabilities of the closed-loop system, represented a paradigm shift from traditional sequential design methodologies.

However, the previous approach was based on a fixed set of energy storage technologies. The proposed paper extends the previous by allowing the optimization scheme to select from an array of energy storage technologies. This extension will again simultaneously design the controller and will preserve the global optimality characteristics. The new approach will also extend the capital cost only perspective to include energy conversion efficiency as a performance metric.