Vehicle Peak Power Management System: Design, Development, and Testing of a Fuel Cell and Supercapacitor Hybrid

The passive combination of fuel cells and supercapacitors possesses promising applications in the automotive industry due to its ability to decrease stack size, maintain peak power capacity, improve system productivity, and go away with the need for additional control, all without Direct current to Direct Current (DC/DC) converters. This research describes the steps to create and evaluate a fuel cell (FC) and supercapacitor (SC) passive hybrid electrical system for a 60-V lightweight vehicle. Also, study offers a thorough design approach and model and experimentally to validate every passive hybrid testing station component. When both concepts are stable, the voltage errors are about 2 % and 3 %, respectively, for fuel cells and supercapacitors. The results of the experiments provide more evidence that the passive design is effective under step loads and driving cycles. The results of the measurements match the models used to simulate the passive hybrid system if a step load voltage is used. A smaller FC stack is possible since the fuel cell controls the steady-state current. Alternatively, the supercapacitors provide varying currents because of their reduced resistance. This study, use a driving cycle to show that the FC stack can lower its output to 25 % of the peak power required by the load.