An efficient control scheme for operational performance enhancement of vehicular fuel cell integrated power system

Recent advancements in fuel cell (FC) technology have positioned it as a promising alternative energy source across various stationary, mobile, and transportation applications. As fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) become increasingly prominent in the transportation sector, they also offer the potential to function as supplementary stationary energy providers when parked, thereby contributing to the grid. In this study, a control method to enhance the energy transfer capability of an FCV-integrated grid system is proposed. To manage energy transfer between grid and FCVs, classical strategies using fixed parameter controllers suffer from performance degradation due to the nonlinear and external parameter-dependent nature of the FC stacks. The proposed adaptive fractional-order proportional-integral strategy bears the advantage of self-tuning parameters feature for designing the control parameters of power conditioning unit. Using fractional-order control endows the system with memory and heredity, enhancing its ability to handle nonlinearity and uncertainty. Through case studies, it is demonstrated that the proposed strategy reduces vehicular FC output power variations by over 60 % while enhancing transient response by 50 % compared to classical control methods. Thus, the limitations such as low control flexibility, slow transient response, and high undershoot/overshoot rates addressed by the classical controllers are countered thanks to the developed strategy.