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Energy Procedia 74 (2015) 1258 – 1264

The International Conference on Technologies and Materials for Renewable Energy,

Environment and Sustainability, TMREES15

Energy Management of Fuel Cell/ Supercapacitor Hybrid Source

Based on linear and sliding mode control
O. Kraaa∗ , H.Ghodbanea , R.Saadia , M.Y.Ayad b , M.Becheri f c , A.Abouboua and M.Bahria
aLaboratory of Energy Systems Modeling, o.kraa@mselab.org, university of Biskra, Algeria
b Industrial Hybrid Vehicle Applications, ayadmy@gmail.com, France
c FCLab FR CNRS 3539 FEMTO-ST UMR CNRS 6174, mohamed.becherif@utbm.fr, UTBM Belfort, France

Abstract
This paper presents the modelling and control strategies based on PI and nonlinear sliding mode controllers of a hybrid fuel
cell/supercapacitor source. It is composed of a Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC 500 W) and a supercapacitor
stack (800 W) as a main and an auxiliary sources respectively, to supply the load requirements in the transient and steady states.
A classical PI controller has been adapted to control DC bus voltage and to determine the FC’s reference current. Due to the fast
response in the transient state and its ability to work with a constant or variable frequency, a sliding mode controllers have been
used to control the SC and FC currents through boost and DC-DC bidirectional converters, respectively. The simulation results
under Matlab/Simulink showed that the proposed control strategies managed and controlled successfully the hybrid system and
satisfied the load requirements with a stable and robust performances.

©c 2015
2015TheTheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier Ltd. is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Ltd. This
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Euro-Mediterranean Institute for Sustainable Development (EUMISD).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Euro-Mediterranean Institute for Sustainable Development (EUMISD)
Keywords: Hybrid Source, Fuel Cell, Energy Management, PI Controller, Sliding Mode Control.

1. Introduction

Nowadays, the appearance of prototype replacing part of the battery by a fuel cell generator pack, made the Elec-
tric Vehicle (EV) research turned to the Fuel Cell technology. However, the FC’s uses in the EV field remain at the
prototype stage, due to many obstacles such as its slow behaviour, hydrogen storage and complexity of their annexes
component (compressors, radiators,..etc) [1]. The main FC vehicle drawback is its slow dynamic behaviour specially
during the transient load variations. Thus, to utilize an FC in dynamic applications, its current or power slope must
be limited to circumvent the fuel-starvation problem [2]. As a result, the EV’s system must have at least an auxiliary
power source (an energy storage device), such as a battery or SCs to improve the system performance when electrical

∗ Corresponding author. Tel: +213 (0) 6 64 58 47 06; fax: .

E-mail address: o.kraa@mselab.org

1876-6102 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4 .0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Euro-Mediterranean Institute for Sustainable Development (EUMISD)
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2015.07.770
 O. Kraa et al. / Energy Procedia 74 (2015) 1258 – 1264 1259

loads at a DC bus demand high power in a short time (e.g. vehicle acceleration) [3].
The SC has an unusually high energy density, but its main disadvantage is its lower specific energy, which limits the
uses of SC only in transient dynamic performance, so they can be used only as auxiliary sources. In hybrid source,
the SCs have better performances than the battery[4], where the hybrid FC/SC source has advantages of FC plus the
SCs advantages, which eliminate the drawbacks of the FC in transient state and allow absorbing the peak loads during
the braking in short time unlike the battery.

The DC/DC converter is a component key for the hybridization. It is an electrical device that transforms unreg-
ulated DC power to regulated DC bus power in the hybrid configuration. The DC/DC converter is mostly dedicated
to control the output voltage. The wide FC voltage imposes difficulties in efficiency and reliability. Typically less
knowledge of the FC dynamics forces the use of secondary energy storage such as battery or super capacitor (SC)
for transient response[5]. The studied hybrid system consists a boost converter to set the output voltage of FC and
DC-DC bidirectional converter to manage the charging and discharging operations of the SC.

In this work, an energy management algorithm and sliding mode strategies have been developped to manage and
control the the hybrid source energies and DC bus voltage, respectively. the main source (FC) supplies the load
and charges the SC power source (auxiliary source), which is used to supply and to absorb the peak loads required
during acceleration and braking. Also, The SC can supply the missed power if the load power is higher than the FC’s
maximum power.

2. Modelling of studied FC-SC hybrid source

As shown in Fig. 1, the studied system comprises a hybrid DC link for the EV application, it includes a FC and
a no reversible DC-DC boost converter that maintains the DC voltage Vbus to its reference value, whereas the SC is
connected to the DC link through a current reversible DC-DC converter. The FC supplies the mean power to the
load, whereas the storage device is used as a power source to supply and to absorb peak loads required during the
acceleration and braking of the electric vehicle. The Fig. 1 shows the studied circuit of the FC-SC hybrid source. The
equation (1) presents the nonlinear Larminie et Dicks static model of FC [6].
    
iFC − in iFC − in
VFC = E0 − Alog − Rm (iFC − in ) + Blog 1 − (1)
i0 il im

Hence VFC = f (iFC ), E0 is the reversible no loss voltage of the FC, iFC is the delivered current, i0 is the exchange
current, A is the slope of the Tafel line, iLim is the limiting current, B is the constant in the mass transfer, in is the
internal current and Rm is the membrane and contact resistances.

Fig. 1. The studied hybrid power source

1260 O. Kraa et al. / Energy Procedia 74 (2015) 1258 – 1264

2.1. Modelling of the FC’s converter

The FC is connected to DC bus by a boost converter that is used to adapt the low DC voltage delivered by the FC,
and to reduce the input current ripple. The FC voltage and current are written as follow [7]:
⎧
⎪ dVFC 1
⎨ = [(1 −UFC )IFC − IL0 ]
dt Cbus (2)
⎪ dI
⎩ FC =
1
[(1 −UFC )Vbus + rFC IFC ]
dt LFC

2.2. Modelling of the SC’converter

The SCs are connected to the DC bus by means of a bidirectional DC/DC converter, as shown 1, Lsc represents the
inductor used for energy transfer. The inductor size is classically defined by switching frequency and current ripple
[8],[9]. The SCs voltage and current are written as follows:
⎧
⎪ dI 1
⎨ SC = [VSC − (1 −USC )Vbus − rISC ]
dt LSC (3)
⎪ dVSC −1
⎩ = ISC
dt CSC
The approximate function to determine the SC’s state of Charge (SoC) can be written as [10]:
 
ESCu VSCb 2
SOC = = (4)
ESCc VSCr
where VSCr and VSCb are the rated and bottom voltages of the SC respectively.

2.3. Modelling of the DC bus voltage

The expression (5) presents the dynamic variations of the DC bus voltage and current [11].
⎧
⎪ dI 1
⎨ L0 = [Vbus − rIL0 ]
dt Lbus (5)
⎪ dVbus −1
⎩ = [IL + (1 −USC )ISC + (1 −UFC )IFC ]
dt Cbus 0

3. Control of FC-SC hybrid source

The control approach used in this work based on multi-loops control for DC bus voltage, it contains a linear PI
outer loop (or voltage loop), which allows usefully comparing the reference and measured value of DC bus voltage.
Hence, the reference value of FC current obtained from PI regulator will be used in the sliding mode control loop,
which determines the duty cycle (UFC ). The sliding mode control ensures a high safety and fast dynamics of the FC
current. In other hand, a fast sliding mode current loop for the SC converter is used to satisfy the power demand by
the load and sharing the current load demand between the FC and the supercapacitor.
The supplied current by the FC is limited to a range [Imin , Imax ]. The FC in the hybrid system is only operating in
nearly steady state conditions, whereas the SC is supplying during the transient state and absorbs the braking energy.
Consequently, three modes can defined the energy management algorithm of hybrid source:

• The normal mode: if the load power is within the interval [Imin , Imax ], the boost will ensure the regulation
of the DC link current, and the control of the bidirectional SC converter will lead the SC to satisfy the load
requirement during the transient state;

ISCre f = Il0 − IFC (6)

 O. Kraa et al. / Energy Procedia 74 (2015) 1258 – 1264 1261

• The discharging mode: if load current is higher than Imax , the reference current of the boost will be saturated
to Imax , and the DC-DC converter will ensure the regulation of the DC link current by supplying the lacking
current shown in (7) through the SC;

ISCre f = Il0 − IFCmax (7)

• The charging mode: if the load current is lower than Imin and the SC is not fully charged (regenerative braking
mode), the peak power will be absorbed by SC. Also, the FC will keep charging the SC until to be fully charged.

ISCre f = Il0 + IFCmax (8)

The proposed control principle is illustrated in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Structure of flatness and sliding mode based control of a FC-SCs DC bus.

3.1. Control of the fuel cell

The control approach used in this work based on multi-loops control for DC bus voltage, it contains a linear PI
outer loop (or voltage loop), which allows usefully comparing the reference and measured value of DC bus voltage.
Hence, the reference value of FC current obtained from PI regulator will be used in the sliding mode control loop,
which determines the duty cycle (UFC ). The FC current reference I ∗ is generated by means of a PI current loop
control on a DC link voltage and its reference as shown in 3. The open-loop transfer functions given in (9) and (10)
are obtained after Laplace transformation of the average small-signal model of boost (more details are given in [12]).

I˜FC (CbusVbus )s + 2(1 −UFC )IFC

HiFC = = (9)
ũFC LFC
(LFCCbus )s2 + s + (1 −UFC )2
RLoad

ṽbus (1 −UFC )Vbus − (LFC IFC )s

GVbus = = (10)
ĩFC (CbusVbus )s + 2(1 −UFC )IFC

3.2. Sliding mode control

The sliding mode control ensures a high safety and fast dynamics of the FC current. In other hand, a fast sliding
mode current loop for the SC converter is used to satisfy the power demand by the load and sharing the current load
1262 O. Kraa et al. / Energy Procedia 74 (2015) 1258 – 1264

Fig. 3. PI Closed-loop control of the FC source.

demand between the FC and the supercapacitor. Thus, we define a sliding surface S as a function of the Fc and SC
currents and their references as follow:


SFC = (iFCre f − IFC ) − KIFC IFCre f − IFC )dt
(11)
SSC = (ISCre f − ISC ) − KISC ISCre f − ISC )dt

Consider the following reaching law in order to set the system dynamic:

Ṡ = −λ S (12)

By substituting (12) in the expression of IFC and ISC given in (2) and (3) respectively, the equivalent commands of
FC and SC converters can be written as:
⎧
⎪
⎪ VFC − LFC [i̇FCre f − λ1 SFC + KFC (iFCre f − iFC )]
⎨ UFC = 1 +
Vb us (13)
⎪
⎪ VSC − LSC [i̇SCre f − λ2 SSC + KSC (iSCre f − iSC )]
⎩ USC = 1 −
Vbus

4. simulation results

The following simulation study demonstrates the power enhancement capability of proposed control strategy of
the hybrid system. The SC initial voltage is set to 15 V and its maximum power is limited to [-800 800] W. Whereas
the maximum power of FC is set 300 W. To investigate the system behaviour in different operating modes, a variable
pulse load power is imposed on the system with the load power cycle. The DC-DC converter connected to the load is
controlled such that the system output voltage V ∗bus is 42 V. The parameters of the hybrid source are shown in Table
1.

Table 1. The FC parameters.

Parameters Value
∗ the reference of DC bus voltage
Vbus 42 [V]
PFCmax the maximum FC’s power is set 300 [W]
E the reversible no loss voltage of the fuel cell 27.1[V] at T = 55C, 23 cells
io the exchange current 6.54e-3[A]
Rm the membrane and contact resistances 0.08[Ω]
A the slope of the Tafel line 1.35[V]
B the constant in the mass transfer 1.19[V]
iL im the limiting current 100[A]
in the internal current 0.23[A]
LFC boost’s inductance 3000e-6[H]
Cbus the total capacitance at DC bus 32e − 6[F]
CSC the total capacitance of supercapacitor module 175 [F]
LSC buck-boost’s inductance 100e-6 [H]

The Fig. 4 shows that the output voltage (VDL ) tracks well its reference with very small overshot and a stable
behaviour in steady state even at the moment of the load variations. Moreover, the dynamics of FC’s voltage and
current are controlled according to load power demands characteristic as it is presented in Fig. 5.
O. Kraa et al. / Energy Procedia 74 (2015) 1258 – 1264 1263

Fig. 4. DC-bus voltage and its reference.

Fig. 5. FC’s voltage and current with its reference

Fig. 6. SC’s voltage and current with its reference

Fig. 7. System power responses

1264 O. Kraa et al. / Energy Procedia 74 (2015) 1258 – 1264

Therefore, the SC supplies load during the transient state because of its fast dynamic. The results shown in Fig. 5
and 6 present the good tracking of the FC and SC currents to their references. So the used sliding mode regulators
work favourably.
The basic operation modes of the studied FC-SC hybrid source are shown in Fig. 7. The initial state has a load
power = 300W , the SC supplied the load in transient stated, whereas the FC power satisfies the load power demanded
in steady state. At t = 4s, the load power steps to a constant value of 400W , synchronously, the final FC power is in
its limited maximum power (300W ). Thus, the SC supplies most of the transient power that is required during stepped
load (Fig. 6), it remains in a discharge state after the stepped load because the steady-state load power (400W ) is
higher than the FC limited maximum power (300W ). Subsequently, at t = 10s, the load power steps from 400W to
−100W (braking mode in the EV application). As a result, the SC changes its state from discharging to charging,
demonstrating mode. First, the FC supplies its limited maximum power of 300W for charging the SC, which absorbs
simultaneously the regenerative braking power from the load. Second, at t = 12s until 20s the load power is zero,
then, only the FC charges the SC. Finally, at t = 15s, the SC is fully charged, and the its charging power is zero.

5. conclusion

In this paper, a management algorithm and DC bus voltage control based on the linear and sliding mode controls
are developped to control a FC/SC hybrid system. The DC bus voltage is controlled by multiple-control loops, which
combine PI regulator and a sliding mode control of the FC and SC converters. The proposed energy management
made the system works with three modes according the load profile and SC state of charge. The simulation results
show that the DC bus voltage, FC and SC currents track well their references in different test conditions, also the
energy management algorithm is managed successfully the hybrid system operation mode with stable and robust
performance.

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