Data-driven MPPT techniques for optimizing vehicular fuel cell performance in hybrid DC microgrid

This paper aims to apply data-driven maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques specifically tailored for fuel cell vehicle (FCV) supported hybrid DC microgrids to enhance the power harvesting capability of fuel cell (FC) stacks. Compared to existing MPPT techniques, the current study focuses on developing and evaluating data- driven approaches for maximum power extraction by dynamically determining the operating point of FC power sources through a Zeta converter. An in-depth analysis is conducted by considering parameters such as efficiency, tracking accuracy, response time, and robustness to variations in load demand and operating conditions. The performance results validate that the developed three-layer neural network (TNN)-based MPPT gives better performance findings than Gaussian process regression (GPR), support vector regression (SVR), decision tree regression (DTR), and bagging ensemble decision tree (BEDT). In the performance evaluation phase, a vehicular FC with a rating of 1.26 kW is designed and operated within the temperature range of 320 K to 343 K for hydrogen pressure values ranging from 1 bar to 1.8 bar. For these operational conditions, the prediction accuracy value of the proposed TNN method is 99.6% while the performance values GPR, SVR, DTR, and BEDT are 99%, 98.6%, 97.2%, and 96%. In addition, system efficiency is increased by 0.98%, 1.25%, 2.51%, and 3.02% compared to GPR, SVR, DTR, and BEDT, respectively.