Contribution to energy management of fuel cell/battery hybrid electric vehicles

The fuel cell electric vehicle is one of the promising prospects in this modern technical world for green transportation. It can really make our life easier and more economical if used with the same performance as that in recently used vehicles. This paper presents a techno-economic optimization model to perform the optimal sizing of fuel cell/battery hybrid electric vehicles. Optimum sizing has been applied to an electric vehicle consisting of a permanent magnetic synchronous machine, a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell, and lead acid battery storage. The optimal cost design and the new suitable power management approach are the main objectives. The optimal sizing of the proton-exchange membrane fuel cell/battery hybrid power for the vehicle is assessed on the basis of minimizing the cost of supplying energy from the two sources. An improved energy management algorithm is employed to decide the operating modes of the electric vehicles using the instantaneous values of the vehicle power, the pressure of the hydrogen tank, and the state of charge of the battery. The speed control of the system is accomplished by an proportional integral controller and also evaluates its efficiency. The obtained results are verified by carrying out MATLAB simulation using the New European Driving Cycle showing all the seven operating modes of the management algorithm. The simulation studies are conducted to verify the performance of the system under different conditions (acceleration and braking). The simulation results show the effectiveness and excellent performances of the proposed algorithm. These results show that this proposal is justified and examined more deeply and realized by a practical implementation.