A New Power Control Strategy for Hybrid Fuel Cell Vehicles

The fuel economy of Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCVs) is affected by various factors such as the fuel cell efficiency, the regenerative energy capturing, the power control strategy, the vehicle driving patterns, the degree of hybridization between fuel cells and energy storage systems, and so on. In this thesis, a new power control strategy is proposed to improve fuel economy for hybrid FCVs considering the fuel cell efficiency and battery energy management. In order to show the power flows due to the proposed power control strategy and analyze the fuel economy, an overall vehicle simulation for three types of FCVs is implemented. The results show that the fuel economy can be improved by operating the fuel cell system within the specified high efficiency region and managing the state of charge (SOC) of the battery for absorbing regeneration energy effectively