Fault-tolerant MPC control of PEM fuel cells

Abstract

In this paper, fault-tolerant MPC control of PEM fuel cells is addressed. MPC is a suitable control methodology to control fuel cell systems because of their multivariable and complex behaviour. Additionally, MPC is one of the control methodologies that can introduce more easily fault-tolerance. However, the problem of including actuator fault-tolerance in the control loops of these systems has not already been addressed in the literature. This work is focused on the air feeding control. A new control structure that not only uses the compressor voltage as a control variable but also the air valve opening area at the cathode output is considered to improve the fault-tolerance of the air feeding subsystem. It is shown that using this additional control permits to introduce fault-tolerance against compressor faults at the same time that allows to improve control performance. Finally, the proposed approach is assessed on a known test bench PEM fuel cell through simulation.