Research Center for Supervision, Safety and Automatic Control

PEMCell

CICYT Project DPI2005-05415. From 2006 to 2008.

PEMCell: Fault tolerant control of PEM fuel cell systems

SUMMARY

Currently there is great interest in new technologies for energy production systems due to the perceived termination of fossil fuels in the future as well as environmental considerations. PEM fuel cell systems are a promising new technology for clean energy production in mobile and stationary applications.

 

PEM fuel cell systems are highly complex engineering systems where many physical phenomena are involved. Safe, efficient and reliable operation of fuel cell systems depends on maintaining the fuel cell at precise operating points. Faults in auxiliary systems or in the fuel cell stack itself can result in loss of performance, system shutdown or in the worst case, permanent damage to the system. Due to the inherent complexity of fuel cell systems, systematic methods are needed to increase tolerance towards faults and augment reliability not only through hardware but also with algorithms.

The main objective of this project is to develop algorithms for fault tolerant control of fuel cell systems.

Main Workpackages:

  • Develop further models of common faults in fuel cell systems; analyze their propagation and effect on performance.
  • Develop fault detection and isolation algorithms along with a diagnosis system to be able to determine when faults have occurred and estimate their severity.
  • Design of control algorithms with the aim of recover performance of system or allow performance to degrade gracefully with the aim of protecting the fuel cell system.
  • Design of supervisors that react to diagnostic events with the aim of protecting the fuel cell system.

Most relevant publications

  • C. Ocampo-Martíınez, C., P. Guerra, V. Puig and J. Quevedo. “Fault Tolerance Evaluation of Linear Constrained MPC using Zonotope-based Set Computations”. Journal of Systems & Control Engineering, 221(6):915-926, <doi: 10.1002/acs.1099>, 2007.
  • Nejjari, F., Perez, R., Escobet,T. and Travé-Massuyès L. “Fault diagnosability utilizing quasi-static and structural modelling”. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, vol 45 (5-6):606-616, <doi:10.1016/j.mcm.2006.06.008>, 2007.
  • Ingimundarson, A., Stefanopoulou, A.G., McKay, D.A. “Model based detection of hydrogen leaks in a fuel cell stack”. IEEE Transactions of Control System Technology, vol. 16 (5):1004-1012, <doi:10.1109/TCST.2007.916311>, 2008.
  • Puig, V., J. Quevedo, T. Escobet, F. Nejjari and S. de las Heras. "Passive Robust Fault Detection of Dynamic Processes Using Interval Models". IEEE transactions on control systems technology, vol. 16 (5):1083-1089,  <doi: 10.1109/TCST.2007.906339>, 2008.
  • Rosich, A., Sarrate, R., Puig, V., Escobet. T. “Efficient Optimal Sensor Placement for Model-based FDI using an Incremental Algorithm”. 46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, <doi:10.1109/CDC.2007.4434636>, December 2007, p. 2590-2595.
  • Puig, V., Rosich, A., Ocampo, C. “Fault-Tolerant Explicit MPC of PEM Fuel Cells”. 46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, <doi:10.1109/CDC.2007.4434655>, December 2007, p. 2657-2662.

- Develop further models of common faults in fuel cell systems; analyze their propagation and effect on performance.