Robust energy management strategy based on non-linear cascade control of fuel cells-super capacitors hybrid power system

The use of super capacitors as secondary sources in fuel cell power systems with adequate energy management strategy strongly contributes to increasing the lifespan of fuel cells by protecting them against sudden variations of the load current and improves the efficiency and the dynamics of the hybrid power system, thus obtained. This paper presents an innovative management strategy of fuel cells-super capacitors hybrid power system, based on a nonlinear control using an integral hysteresis sliding mode controller combined with two cascaded linear controllers. The hybrid power system consists of the fuel cells system, the super capacitors, two power converters, the energy management system and the load. The proposed technique takes into account the physical operating limits of the secondary source such as deep discharges and excessive overloads. Furthermore, the integral effect added to the hysteresis sliding mode controller improves the robustness against disturbances and variations in parameters such as filtering inductances and DC bus capacitors. A detailed model of the system is established and simulated in Matlab/Simulink software, which allows showing its behavior with a very satisfactory accuracy. The simulation results clearly show that the proposed control strategy insures efficient and safe energy transfer. In addition, the control robustness is very satisfactory despite the variation of the system parameters.