Power demand for fuel cell system in hybrid vehicles

This chapter demonstrates the total power demand of a fuel cell hybrid electric powertrain and contains five sections. The first section introduces the architecture of a fuel cell hybrid powertrain and explains the role and necessity of a well-designed energy management strategy (EMS) for power allocation between different energy sources of the hybrid powertrain. Section two presents the commonly used driving cycles in vehicle performance assessment, while section three is dedicated to the modeling of the fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle (FCHEV) body. Section four details first the importance of a well-designed EMS. Then, it presents the major challenges and influential factors of fuel cell operation in vehicle applications. At the end of section four, an extended analysis of the available energy management strategies in the literature with their advantages and drawbacks is provided. A case study of EMS for FCHEV based on fuzzy logic control, using MATLAB®/Simulink software has been described later in the sections.