Driving profile and fuel cell minimum power

analysis impact over the size and cost of fuel cell

based propulsion systems
C. Raga, A. Barrado, A. Lzaro, I. Quesada, M. Sanz, P. Zumel
Grupo de Sistemas Electrnicos de Potencia, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Av. Universidad 30, 28911 Legans, Madrid (Espaa)
Tel.: +34 91 624 87 53, Fax.: +34 91 624 94 30, Email: Carmen.raga@uc3m.es

profiles, sub-urban profiles and high road profiles. The driving

cycles do not consider actual stops and starts, ambient
conditions such as rain or wind, nor driver behavior. However,
these driving patterns are used by manufacturers and
researchers with the purpose of evaluating and comparing the
vehicles pollutant emissions, fuel economy and vehicle
performances.
In [15], an optimal sizing of propulsion systems, applied to
fuel cell based vehicles has been introduced. It presents the
minimum cost and mass analytic calculation for the set of
power distribution architectures as a function of the fuel cell
delivered power. The propulsion systems have been grouped
attending to their energy storage device, and for each group
the optimal design power range has been determined. The
overall sizing procedure requires the knowledge of the vehicle
and the driving profile characteristics. From these
specifications the power and energy requirements are
determined, and the architectures optimal size and mass are
calculated as a function of the maximum fuel cell delivered
power. Additionally, the optimum sizing algorithm offers the
most appropriate ratio between the secondary energy storage
devices mass.
Taking into account all the aforementioned factors that
affect the overall mass, size and cost of fuel cell based
propulsion systems, and considering [15] the baseline of this
research work, this paper presents, for light vehicles, two
different analyses. Firstly, the driving cycle impact on the size
and cost of ten different propulsion systems is evaluated. For
that, three different driving cycles are applied, ECE15,
EUDCL and EUDC. In all cases, the vehicles features are kept
constant. The second analysis is focused on the impact of the
minimum delivered power limit for the fuel cell that must be
observed, in order to avoid unexpected fuel cell shut downs,
since the startup time can extend until tens of seconds. This
minimum power affects the relationship between the energy
and power requirements, and therefore affects the
architectures mass, volume and cost. The two analyses offer,
not only the new optimal size and cost of the ten propulsion
systems as a function of the maximum power delivered by the
fuel cell, but also provide the new maximum delivered fuel
cell power range in which is suggested the use of each kind of
them.
The paper is organized as follows. Section II describes the
set of powertrains on which the analyses are applied, as well
as the vehicle characteristics. In the Section III the driving

Abstract The overall mass, size and cost of a propulsion system

(which comprises the fuel cell stack and hydrogen tank, dc/dc
converters, and energy storage devices) implemented in a fuel cell
based vehicle, not only depends on the implemented propulsion
system topology and control strategy, but also on the driving
profile and the fuel cell operating features.
This paper analyzes the impact of both the driving profile and
the minimum power delivered by the fuel cell over the mass, size
and cost of a set of ten different propulsion systems applied to a
light fuel cell based vehicle.
Keywords battery, cost, driving profiles, fuel cell, mass,
powertrain, propulsion system, sizing, supercapacitor, transport,
vehicles.

I.
INTRODUCTION
Fuel cell based vehicles has become a solid alternative to
internal combustion engines vehicles, due to their growing
reliability and autonomy [1]-[3], in spite of the necessary
design of power conditioning systems which deals with the
fuel cell slow dynamic response, load dependant output
voltage, unidirectional power flow and other operating
features such as very long startup times, high temperature
startup, and overshooted and/or overdamped transient
responses [4]-[6]. For this kind of vehicles, the main technical
targets are the improvement of maximum speed, accelerations,
autonomy, cost and durability [7]. On the other hand, the
propulsion system size and mass must be as smaller as
possible, in order to fulfill automotive requirements. As a
consequence of this mass reduction, the fuel consumption is
also reduced and therefore the autonomy is increased. The size
and mass reduction apply to the overall propulsion system, in
which have been considered: fuel cell stack and hydrogen tank
(but nor the auxiliary components neither the hydrogen fuel),
dc/dc converters, and energy storage devices (supercapacitors
and batteries).
Depending on the number, location and kind of both the
power converters and the energy storage devices, as well as
the control strategy and the regenerative braking, there is a
wide range of possibilities in the propulsion system design [8][14]. Therefore, the selection of the propulsion system of a
fuel cell based vehicle is a complex task that has a strong
impact on the overall mass, cost, volume, efficiency,
autonomy, etc. The most suitable power distribution
architecture is closely related to the applied driving profile.
Roughly there are three main types of driving cycles: urban

978-1-4799-6301-0/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE

390

cycle impact is analyzed. The fuel cell minimum power

impact is studied in Section IV, and finally, Section V
summarizes the conclusions reached along the paper.

focused on the driving profile impact on the propulsion

systems size and cost (considering a manufacturing of more
than 500000 units). In the second the impact of the minimum
power delivered by the fuel cell on the overall size and cost of
each one of the tenth power distribution architectures is
analyzed.

II. POWERTRAIN ANALYSIS

A propulsion system comprises different number and kind
of dc/dc converters and energy storage devices, which
depending on their placement derive in, at least, ten different
power distribution architectures. Applying the optimization
sizing algorithm described in [15], the most appropriate design
power range for each group of architectures has been
determined: those that use only batteries, only supercapacitors,
or a combination of batteries and supercapacitors.
Additionally, the proper ratio between batteries and
supercapacitors has been calculated.

III. DRIVING PROFILE IMPACT

A driving profile is composed by a set of normalized speeds
and slope profiles, which represent the road constraints. They
are used to evaluate the Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) in
terms of fuel economy and pollutant emissions, [16], and they
are used to compare different propulsion systems topologies
applied to fuel cell based hybrid electric vehicles from the
cost, efficiency and autonomy point of view, [16]-[22]. The
driving profile significantly affects the overall vehicle cost,
size, fuel economy, efficiency, etc., since the applied driving
pattern, along with the power delivered by the fuel cell,
determines the energy and power requirements that the
propulsion system (fuel cell system, dc/dc converters, batteries
and/or supercapacitors) must satisfy.

The set of propulsion systems under study are shown in

Fig. 1. It can be observed that all power distribution
architectures implement a fuel cell as main energy source, a
set of unidirectional and/or bidirectional dc/dc converters and
different kind of energy storage devices. The tenth
architecture, 0B, corresponds to a pure electric vehicle, and it
has been included in order to compare the advantages and
drawbacks from the mass and cost point of view, between a
pure electric car and a fuel cell based vehicle.

The three different European driving profiles which have been

used to evaluate their impact on the propulsion system
selection are the Urban Driving Cycle for light vehicles ECE15, (also known as UDC), the Extra Urban Driving Cycle for
Low power vehicles EUDCL, and the Extra Urban Driving
Cycle EUDC, see Fig. 2, Fig. 3 and Fig. 4.

Along this paper, by means of the optimal sizing algorithm

presented in [15], two different analyses are carried out on the
set of propulsion systems shown in Fig. 1. The first one is
1B

2B
Fuel cell

Fuel cell

DC/DC

DC/DC

1C1
Load

DC/DC
Bidirectional

Fuel cell

Load
DC/DC
Bidirectional

Battery

Load

Supercapacitors

Battery

1C2

2C
Fuel cell

Fuel cell

DC/DC

DC/DC

3C
Load

Fuel cell

DC/DC

Load

Load
DC/DC

DC/DC
Bidirectional

Supercapacitors

DC/DC

Supercapacitors

Supercapacitors

1BC

3BC
Fuel cell

DC/DC

DC/DC

Load
Fuel cell

Battery
Fuel cell

2BC

DC/DC

DC/DC
Bidirectional

Load
Battery

Supercapacitors

DC/DC
Bidirectional

DC/DC
Bidirectional

Supercapacitors

Supercapacitors

1C1 means:

1 C 1

Nomenclature:
Number of converters
Secondary sources
Discriminates among diferent
(0, 1, 2, 3)
(Battery (B), Supercapacitor (C)) architectures with the same subsystems

Fig. 1: Power distribution architectures based on fuel cell, supercapacitors and batteries analyzed.

391

Load
Battery

The ECE-15 driving profile has a maximum speed of

50km/h and the total time is 181s. The EUDCL has a
maximum speed of 90km/h and the total time is 400s. Finally,
the EUDC profile has a speed limit of 120km/h and total time
of 400s is used.

a)

Each driving profile implies a different power profile that

must be satisfied by the propulsion system under study. The
three considered driving profiles, along with their
corresponding power profiles, are shown in Fig. 2, Fig. 3 and
Fig. 4.

400

Power (kW)

40
30

The different power profiles present a higher peak power

along the vehicle maximum speed increases.

b)

20
10
0
10

40

80

120

160

200

240

280

320

360

400

Time (s)

Fig 4.a) EUDC driving profile, and b) power demand under EUDC profile.

All the analyses are carried out considering a light vehicle

of 800kg. When the ECE-15 driving profile is applied, the
vehicle is propelled by a motor of nominal power 4.7kW
which is able to provide a peak power of 18kW. However,
when the EUDCL and EUDC driving profiles are applied, a
different motor is used, which is able to provide a peak power
of 35kW. The considered electrical motor efficiency is 0.75,
the considered fuel cell system efficiency is 0.6, and the dc/dc
power converters efficiency, depending on the unidirectional
or bidirectional power flow, is 0.95 and 0.9 respectively.
Finally, the batteries and supercapacitor efficiencies is 0.95.
All these data, and further interesting information, is provided
in [15].

a)

200

Time (s)

20

Power (kW)

15
10

b)

5
0
5
10

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Time (s)

Given the power demand profiles derived from the

considered driving cycles, it can be observed that, as described
in [15], at lower maximum power delivered by the fuel cell the
propulsion system minimum mass is achieved implementing
only batteries; at higher maximum power delivered by the fuel
cell the propulsion system minimum mass is achieved using
only supercapacitors, (this power region is very narrow, due to
a higher maximum fuel cell power, the energy from
regenerative braking periods is bigger than the energy
demanded by the load that the fuel cell cannot satisfy), and
finally, in the intermediate range of maximum power delivered
by the fuel cell, the propulsion system minimum mass is
achieved combining both batteries and supercapacitors.

Fig 2. a) ECE-15 driving profile, b) power demand under ECE-15 driving

profile.

a)

400

Fig. 5 shows the per-unit battery and supercapacitor

masses evolution as a function of the fuel cell delivered
maximum power. The influence of the driving profile can be
noticed in the power level that limits each region, see Fig. 5;
the only batteries power range goes from 0kW toward
Linf=2.4kW under ECE-15 driving cycle, from 0kW to
Linf=9.6kW under EUDCL cycle and finally from 0kW to
Linf=14.8kW under EUDC cycle. Regarding the power range
in which batteries and supercapacitors are used together, it
goes from Linf=2.4kW to Lupp=6.3kW under ECE-15 driving
cycle, from Linf=9.6kW to Lupp=11.1kW under EUDCL cycle,
and finally from Linf=14.8kW to Lupp=20.2kW under EUDC
cycle. Additionally, it can be seen in Fig. 5 that, as the ratio
between the demanded energy to the demanded power
increases, then the power range in which is suggested the use

Power (kW)

20
15
10

b)

5
0
5
10

40

80

120

160

200

Time (s)

240

280

320

360

400

Fig 3. a) EUDCL driving profile, b) power demand under EUDCL

driving profile.

392

of batteries, batteries plus supercapacitors or only

supercapacitors is shifted to the right (increasing fuel cell
maximum delivered power).
Per unit battery mass

Only supercapacitor

0.6

0.4

0.2

Linf

Lupp

6.3kW

2.4kW
0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

Only battery

Only battery

0.8

Per unit battery mass

Only supercapacitor

It can be observed in Fig. 6 that the evolution of the mass,

volume and cost of each propulsion system topology are very
similar when any of the three different driving cycles is
considered. Additionally, the mass, volume and cost
corresponding to the pure electric car is significantly higher
than the mass, volume and cost of the fuel cell based power
distribution architectures.

Linf

Lupp

9.6kW
9

11.1kW

10

11

0
12

Maximum power delivered by the fuel cell (kW)

Maximum power delivered by the fuel cell (kW)

a)

b)

In Fig. 7, the three best power distribution architectures for

each optimization target are represented in bar diagrams. It
can be observed that the preferred power distribution
architectures (1B, 1BC, and 1C2) are the same independently
of the applied driving cycle.
Mass (kg)
ECE15

Per unit battery mass

EUDCL

EUDC

140

Only battery

0.6

0.4

Linf

0.2

Lupp

14.8kW
0
12

14

Only supercapacitor

120
0.8

100

a)

60
40
20
0

20.2kW
16

18

20

80

1B

0
22

ECE15

c)

140

Fig. 5. In per unit battery mass evolution, along with the maximum power
delivered by the fuel cell, a) ECE15 cycle, b) EUDCL cycle, c) EUDC cycle.

120

40
20

Weight(kg)

0
1B

1BC

1C2

Cost ()

600
500

ECE15

400

EUDCL

300

EUDC

ECE15

200

c)

100
0
0B

1B

2B 1BC 2BC 3BC 1C1 1C2 2C

3C

450

Volume (l)

400
300
250

ECE15

200

EUDCL

150

EUDC

0
3C

Cost ()

12000
10000
8000

ECE15

6000

EUDCL

1C2

Considering the driving cycle ECE-15, and the same

electric motor features in all cases, three different minimum
power values have been applied, 0W, 200W and 400W. The
new optimal power ranges for architectures using only
batteries,
batteries
and
supercapacitors,
or
only
supercapacitors are determined for the minimization of mass,

EUDC

4000

1BC

IV. FUEL CELL MINIMUM POWER IMPACT

As aforementioned, the fuel cell operating characteristics
make necessary a careful design of power conditioning
systems, in order to improve the behavior of the complete
propulsion system. In fact, a minimum power limit for the fuel
cell must be considered, in order to avoid unexpected fuel cell
shut downs, since the start up time can extend until tens of
seconds.

50

14000

EUDC

Fig. 7. a) Mass, b) volume, and, c) cost for EUDC cycle, ECE15 cycle and
EUDCL cycle, respectively.

100

0B 1B 2B 1BC 2BC 3BC 1C1 1C2 2C

EUDCL

4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
1B

350

c)

EUDC

80

700

b)

EUDCL

60

800

a)

1C2

100

b)

Fig. 6 shows the optimal mass, volume and cost for each
driving profile and each propulsion system topology evaluated
in their proper power range.
900

1BC

Volume (l)

Maximum power delivered by the fuel cell (kW)

2000
0
0B 1B 2B 1BC 2BC 3BC 1C1 1C2 2C 3C

Fig. 6. Each propulsion system topology a) mass, b) volume, and, c) cost,

for EUDC cycle, ECE15 cycle and EUDCL cycle.

393

volume and cost [15] (see Fig. 8). It can be observed in Fig. 8
that the power limits of the range in which each type of
propulsion system is recommended, Linf and Lupp , are shifted
to the left. This displacement is due to the increase of the fuel
cell delivered energy when a minimum delivered power PFCmin
is considered; and therefore, the power range in which battery
based architectures are recommended is reduced. Then, less
energy storage capacity is needed.
Per unit battery mass

smaller design power limit Linf, and therefore the minimum

battery mass will be increased, as Fig. 10 depicts.
Mass (kg)
70
60
50

a)

Linf =2.4kW

0.8

0W

30

200W
400W

20

Per unit battery mass

40

10

PFCmin 0kW

Linf =2.2kW

0.8

0
1B

1BC

1C2

Volume (l)

0.6

0.6

0.4

0.4

0.2

0.2

45
40
35
30

PFCmin 0kW
0

Power (kW)

Lupp

Power (kW)

6.4kW

b)

PFCmin 0.2kW

a)

Lupp

5.6kW

25

0W

20

200W

15

400W

10
5
0
1B

b)

1BC

1C2

Cost ()

Per unit battery mass

1400

PFCmin 0kW

Linf =1.8kW

0.8

1200
1000

PFCmin 0.2kW

c)

0.6

800

0W

600

200W
400W

400

0.4

200

0.2
0

PFCmin 0.4kW
0

Power (kW)

1B

Lupp

5kW

1BC

1C2

Fig. 9. Fuel cell minimum power impact over propulsion systems, a) mass,
b) volume and c) cost.

Fig. 10 shows the battery, fuel cell system and dc/dc

converter mass evolution, as a function of the maximum
power delivered by the fuel cell, corresponding to propulsion
system 1B, when two different fuel cell minimum power
values are applied, 0W and 400W.

c)
Fig. 8. Fuel cell minimum power impact over the in per unit battery mass,
a) minimum delivered power of 0W, b) minimum delivered power of 200W
and c) minimum delivered power of 400W.

In Fig. 9 it is shown the impact of considering three

different minimum delivered powers on mass, volume and
cost of the three architectures that minimizes those parameters
(one for each type of secondary energy sources: batteries,
batteries and supercapacitors and supercapacitors).

160

Mass (kg)
PFCmin = 0W

144
128

PFCmin = 400W

112

It can be observed that for the powertrains based on

batteries and supercapacitors, or only supercapacitors, their
mass, volume and cost decrease when the fuel cell increases
its minimum power value.

96

However, architectures that only implement batteries as

secondary energy source have a different behavior. The higher
the minimum power delivered by the fuel cell PFCmin, the lower
the design power limit Linf for the powertrains using only
batteries.

32

80
64

Battery

48

52,4kg

Converters
FC

9kg 10,4kg

16
0

47,4kg

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

4.5

5.5

Fuel cell maximum delivered power (kW)

Fig.10 Battery, fuel cell system and dc/dc converter mass evolution, as a
function of the maximum power delivered by the fuel cell, corresponding to
propulsion system 1B.

The battery total mass needed to satisfy the load

requirements increases when the minimum power delivered by
the fuel cell PFCmin increases, due to the fact that the maximum
power delivered by the fuel cell decreases. An increment of
the minimum power delivered by the fuel cell PFCmin implies a

In Fig. 10, considering a fuel cell minimum power of 0W,

then the power design limit for battery based propulsion
system is placed at Linf=2.5W. On the other hand, for a fuel

394

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cell minimum power of 400W the design power limit for

battery based propulsion system moves to Linf =1.8kW. The
battery masses for these two limits are 47.4kg (in Linf=2.5W)
and 52.4kg (in Linf =1.8kW), respectively. It can be observed
that the battery mass corresponding to the lower design power
limit, Linf =1.8kW, is bigger than the battery mass
corresponding to the higher design power limit Linf =2.5kW.
Considering these new design conditions, the reduction
obtained in terms of power converter and fuel cell mass, cost
and volume is less significant than the increase experienced by
the battery ones, as shown in Fig. 10. Therefore, the overall
mass, volume and cost of architectures using only batteries as
secondary energy sources, increase when the minimum power
delivered by the fuel cell PFCmin decreases.
V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper studies the influence of different parameters on
the size and cost of a set of different propulsion systems. First
the impact of the driving cycle is studied, and next the impact
of the fuel cell minimum delivered power analysis has been
performed.
Regarding the influence of the driving profile, each one of
them implies different profiles of demanded power and
energy. Therefore, the limits of the power ranges in which the
architectures based on batteries, batteries and supercapacitors
or supercapacitors are recommended to use, in order to
optimize mass, cost and volume, are different. However, for
each group of architectures, the optimum ones are the same
regardless the considered driving profile (1B, 1BC and 1C2).
Attending to the minimum power delivered by the fuel cell
impact, as the minimum fuel cell power increases, the power
range limits are displaced toward lower power values, since
the amount of energy that the fuel cell delivers is bigger. The
size and cost of the architectures based on batteries and
supercapacitors, and based on supercapacitors decreases as the
minimum delivered power by the fuel cell increases. The
preferred power distribution architectures, (1B, 1BC, and 1C2)
are the same independently of the energy delivered by the fuel
cell.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work has been supported by the Ministry of Economy
and Competitiveness, through the research project Sistema de
Almacenamiento y Gestin de la Energa para Coche Elctrico
Hbrido basado en Pila de Combustible, Batera y
Supercondensadores (Storage and Energy Management for
Hybrid Electric Vehicles based on Fuel Cell, Battery and
Supercapacitors) - ELECTRICAR-AG- (DPI2014-53685-C21-R).
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