NONLINEAR CONTROL DESIGN FOR SOLID OXIDE FUEL CELLS

Ever increasing energy consumption, rising public awareness for environmental protection and higher prices of fossil fuels have motivated many to look for renewable energy sources. SOFC is one of the best alternative energy source but it is a highly nonlinear system. One of the main goals of this research is designing a nonlinear control. In this thesis, non-isothermal model of solid oxide fuel cell has been developed under the general condition of unchoked outlet flow. For isothermal dynamic model of SOFC, a controller based on on full state feedback linearization is designed and compared with controller based on linearization and gain scheduling. Analysis of controllability and observability is also given for the nonlinear isothermal model