An Optimal Approach to Energy Management Control of a Fuel-Cell Vehicle

This paper presents the design of an energy management control system to improve powertrain efficiency and optimize the amount of fuel used by a hybrid fuel cell vehicle in a route-based scenario. To reach this goal, a complete tank-to-wheel model is developed under the assumption of a known scenario, the speed profile that best minimizes the energy required to complete the test is computed, and a controller able to handle the power request is designed. In particular, a Model Predictive Control architecture is used to split the power request between the primary and the secondary power source (fuel cell and supercapacitors). The effectiveness of the proposed approach is assessed through extensive simulation tests using a realistic model.