Direct Model Predictive Control of Fuel Cell and Ultra-Capacitor Based Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Considering climate change, hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) provide a clean alternative for transportation. This study presents an HEV with a fuel cell and ultra-capacitor connected in a parallel-type configuration. Direct model predictive control is used to optimize the power flow between the energy sources and the motor. Notably, the proposed controller uses a global approach, i.e., a single controller for the regulation of both power converters, thereby enhancing overall performance. Furthermore, the controller design leverages a non-averaged state space model that explicitly incorporates the switching nature of the converters. A method for computing reference currents for the fuel cell and ultra-capacitor is also introduced, which utilizes the ultra-capacitor current to manage power demand transients. Simulation results show that the proposed technique produces better results in terms of overshoot, steady-state error, and response time compared to recent studies in the literature.