Energy management of fuel cell electric vehicle with

hydrid tanks
Alexandre Ravey1,3 , Sebastien Faivre1,3 , Charles Higel1,2,3 , Fabien Harel2,3 , and Abdesslem Djerdir1,3
1

IRTES, UTBM, 90010 Belfort cedex France

IFSTTAR / AME / LTE, 25 Avenue Francois Mitterand, Case24, Cite des mobilites, F-69675 Bron cedex France
3
FR FCLAB, CNRS 3539 France
Corresponding author: alexandre.ravey@utbm.fr

AbstractThis paper proposes a novel control strategy for

fuel cell electric vehicle including hydrid tanks using fuzzy logic
controller. The aim of the study is to manage both thermal and
electric energy with the same controller in order to use the fuel
cell system as a range extender by preventing the batteries state
of charge to drop too quickly. The presented controller use both
batteries state of charge and thermal status of hydrid tank to
control the fuel cell power. This work is a part of the Mobypost
project, which aims to build and test a eet of 10 fuel cell electric
vehicles with their own refuelling hydrogen station based on
hydrogen production by water electrolysis with solar panel.

I.

I NTRODUCTION

Electric mobility is expected to play a key role in the future

of clean energy transportation. Nevertheless, due to autonomy
limitation, Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) appear to be the
best mid-term solution [1][3], specially with Fuel Cell Hybrid
Electric Vehicle (FCHEV) which allow zero emission mobility.
The design and control of such powertrain must be carefully
done to determine the size of each energy sources. When
the vehicle is build for specic applications, such as postal
delivery, the conception can be optimize for its use [4], [5].
In order to store the hydrogen into the vehicle, two ways are
commonly used: On one hand, high pressure tanks allow the
vehicle to be quickly lled with hydrogen but requires the
use of a compressor in order to be able to reach the pressure
value (300 bar), degrading the energy cost from the source to
the wheel [6]. On the other hand, metal hydrid tanks allow a
low pressure charge, avoiding the use of compressor but need
to be thermally managed to be able to provide the desired
ow of hydrogen. Several studies about energy management
of FCHEV can be found into the literature [7][10], but are
not taking into account the hydrogen storage constraints and
limits. This paper aims to integrate metal hydrid tanks into the
energy management of the powertrain, taking into account its
thermal power needs in order to control the ow of hydrogen
delivered.
In a rst part, the Mobypost project within this study has
been done will be explained. Power prole derivated from
specic driving cycles will be then presented, followed by the
components model of the powertrain in order to be able to
simulate the system behavior which will be controlled by a
fuzzy logic controller. Results are nally drawn and discussed
in the conclusion.
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II.

M OBYPOST P ROJECT

Mobypost is a European project which aims at developing

the concept of electric vehicles powered by fuel cells for
delivery application as well as local hydrogen production
and associated refuelling station. The project is based on a
consortium including 8 partners:

University of Technology of Belfort-Montbeliard

(UTBM) - France;

DUCATI energia S.p.A. - Italy;

Mahytec Sarl - France;

MES - Switzerland;

European Institute for Energy Research (Eifer) - Germany;

H2Nitidor s.r.l. - Italy;

SteinBeis-Europa-Zentrum - Germany;

La Poste - France.

Fig. 1: Mobypost project concept

Fig. 1 show the concept of the project which is divided in
two parts:
In a rst part called infrastructure, the project aims at design
and build a hydrogen production and distribution station. Solar
panel equip the building and which feed an electrolyser in

order to produce hydrogen which is store on site in a low

pressure tank. No additional gas compression is done, which
allow the system to produce hydrogen with no electricity added
but water.
The second part is focus on the vehicle. The conception of a
lightweight hybrid electric car including fuel cell and batteries
is done by design the powertrain and size the components
taking into account the mobility application: postal delivery
services. Its include a low pressure metal hydrid tank which
is relled by the hydrogen station. The vehicle is designed
to have an autonomy matching with a postal delivery day of
services.
III.

V EHICLE P OWERTRAIN

A. Powertrain architecture
The vehicle considered in this study is a series FCHEV
based on a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC)
and Li-iron-phosphate-Magnesium (LiFeMgPO4) batteries
pack with two in-wheels motor (Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine) and their associated inverters as shown in
Fig. 2 [11], [12]. The PEMFC is connected to the DC bus via
a DC/DC converter whereas the batteries are directly linked
to the bus [13]. Consequently, only the fuel cell power can
be controlled, the batteries are used as a buffer absorbing the
peak power during acceleration phases.

where Fa is the drag force, Fr the rolling friction, and Fg

the force caused by gravity when driving on non-horizontal
roads:
1
A Cx v 2
Fa =
(2)
2
Fr = mv Cr g cos()
(3)
(4)
Fg = mv g sin()
Variable is the air density, g the standard gravity, v the speed
of the vehicle and the angle dening the slope of the road.
The vehicle designed regarding postal delivery applications
has the following characteristics:

Mass (mv ): 530 kg;

Front surface (A): 2.56 m2 ;

Drag coefcient (Cx ): 0.8;

Rolling coefcient (Cr ): 0.02;

Battery capacity: 5 kWh;

Fuel cell power: 1 kW.

The power prole can be computed using the driving cycle

shown in Fig. 3 as an input of the model [16]. Results is shown
in Fig. 4.
50

speed (km/h)

40

30

20

10

0
0

Fig. 2: Powertrain architecture and control

2000

4000

6000 8000
Time (s)

10000 12000

Fig. 3: Speed prole

B. Power prole
Simulations are run using a backward approach [14]: The
input of the model is the power prole derivated from the
driving cycle of the vehicle. In order to compute this prole,
a vehicle model is used coupled with a real driving cycle.

2) Vehicle model: The drive power Pmot (t) is derived from

Newtons second law,as in (1) [15]:


d
Pmot (t) = v mv (t) v(t) + Fa (t) + Fr (t) + Fg (t)
(1)
dt


x 10

1
Power (W)

1) Driving cycle: The driving cycle used for this study

has been recorded from existing Electric Vehicle (EC) used
for French postal delivery. The vehicle designed within the
Mobypost project is willing to replace the existed EV one
(Fig. 3). Knowing this specic use, the design has been focus
around this driving cycle to optimize as best as possible both
the sizing and the control of the powertrain.

1.5

0.5

0.5

1
0

2000

4000

6000 8000
Time (s)

Fig. 4: Power prole

10000 12000

C. Fuel cell model

Fuel cell system nominal power used in our application
is 1kW . This PEMFC is working at atmospheric pressure
cooled by forced air. Thanks to the powertrain hybrid series
architecture, the fuel cell operates as the main energy converter
(range extender) and the batteries provides the transient currents. In this context the fuel cell is mainly working at specic
operating points that are close to static conditions. Regarding
the previous assumption a static model (5) of the fuel cell is
sufcient and does not require high computation power.
1) electrical model: The voltage of the stack is given by
(5):
Vstack (I) = E0 RI Aln(I) m exp (nI)

(5)

where E0 ,A,m and n are empirical coefcients determined

by a non-linear regression method described in [17].
2) consumption model: The ow of hydrogen by power has
been determined experimentally by the fuel cell manufacturer
for the specied fuel cell used in the powertrain. Results are
shown in Fig. 5.

2) Thermal model: The aim of the thermal model is to

determine the thermal power Pthtank to provide in order to
insure the thermal needs which allows the extraction of a given
hydrogen ow n. It is assumed that the air coming from the
fuel cell is blown uniformly on all the surface of the cylinder
metal hydrid tank. The reaction can be assumed as a thermal
conduction and can be expressed by (8):
Pthtank (t) =

dT (t)2L
ln RR21

(8)

Where dT (t) is the difference of temperature of tank

surface assuming no thermal power is given during (t) in K,
is the thermal conductivity in W m1 K 1 which has been
estimated to 1.087 in [18] , L the length of the tank in m,
R2 the external radius of the tank in m and R1 the internal
radius in m.
Fig. 6 shows the different value of dT (t) by hydrogen ow
nl. dT (t) values have been estimated based on measurement
of the temperature at the cylinders surface when the fuel cell
is running at different working points. These values are not
SoCH2 dependant. Consequently, this model is not correct for
the whole range of tanks state of charge since it has been
shown in [18] that the thermal needs increase while SoCH2
decrease.
1
0.9

Delta of temperature (%)

0.8

Fig. 5: Fuel cell ow by power

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

3) fuel cell thermal model: In thermal power PF Cth which

is produce by the fuel cell is dened by (6):
PF Cth =

1
Vstack Ib
2

(6)

Where b is the blower efciency, which is determine by

the manufacturer of the fuel cell (70%).
D. Hydrid tank model
1) State of charge determination: Since the State of Charge
of metal hydrid tank (SoCH2 ) is not pressure dependent, its
need to be estimated. A simple ow integration is used (7):
 t
1
MH2 n(t)
SoCH2 (t) = SoCH2init
dt
(7)
mtot 0
60
where mtot is the maximal mass of hydrogen stored in the
tank, MH2 is the hydrogen molar mass and n(t) is the ow
in nl.


0.1

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

h2 flow (%)

Fig. 6: Experimental determination of dT by hydrogen ow n

E. Battery model
The batteries model is a simple current integration to
compute the batteries SoC, in this study Vb is considered as
constant.
SoC(t)
b

SoCinit
Cnom

0.95 if Ib < 0
=
1
if Ib 0

t
0

Ib (t)dt

(9)
(10)

where Cnom is the batteries nominal capacity given by the

manufacturer and b the batteries efciency.

F. DC/DC converter model

TABLE I: Controller areas denition for P h

The DC converter is modelled as a basic energy converter

with a given constant efciency.
Iout = conv

Iin Uin
Uout

(11)

Pheater is considered to be high

where Uout is constant because Uout = VBatt and where

Iin = If c , conv is constant and equal to 0.85.

Notation

P h fuzzy value

P hlimit

0.9

P hvery high min

0.8

P hvery high max

P hhigh min
P hhigh max
P hgood min
P hgood max

0.7
0.6
0.3
0.1
0

Description
Pheater is considered to be
highly critical
Pheater is considered to be very
high

Pheater is considered to be good

TABLE II: Controller areas denition for SoC

Description

G. Load model
The power split between the fuel cell current IF C and the
batteries current Ib is given by (12).

SoC is considered to be critical

SoC is considered to be low
SoC is considered to be good
SoC is considered to be high

Imot (t) = IF C (t) + Ib (t)

IV.

(12)

Notation

SoC value

SoClimit
SoClow min
SoClow max
SoCgood min
SoCgood max
SoChigh min
SoChigh max

0.2
0.4
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1

TABLE III: Controller areas denition for IF C

E NERGY MANAGEMENT

Description

Since the batteries are directly link to the DC-bus, only the
fuel cell can be controlled. Control strategy will aim to control
the fuel cell running at its best efciency point while keeping
the state of charge of the batteries in its optimal zone [19], [20].
Moreover, due to technology constraints of the metal hydrid
tank, their temperature need to be kept in a good zone in order
to be able to provide the necessary ow of hydrogen need by
the fuel cell. A fuzzy logic controller is used to determine the
fuel cell current regarding the listed inputs.

Fuel cell is shutdown

Fuel cell run at low power point
Fuel cell runs at its optimal point
Fuel cell runs higher than its optimal
point
Fuel cell runs at maximum power

Notation

IF C value

IF C shutdown
IF C low min
IF C low max
IF C good min
IF C good min
IF C high min

0.1
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7

IF C high min
IF C very high

0.8
1

B. Fuzzy logic controller

A. Thermal constraints denition
Based on the model of hydrid tanks described in section
III-D, the hydrogen ow is depending on the thermal power
given by the Heat Transfer System (HTS). In addition of the
fuel cell, a 500 W heater is added to the system in order to
sustain the power needed in case of low fuel cell operation
point. The thermal power given to the tanks can be describe
as (13):

The designed fuzzy logic controller has two inputs: the

state of charge of the batteries SoC and the power needed
by the heater Pheater described respectively in TABLE I and
TABLE II. The ouput fuel cell current IF C is described in
TABLE III.
All datas for each input and output are gather to create the
membership functions of the controller, drawn in Fig. 7, Fig. 8
and Fig. 9
Limit

Where Pthtank is the thermal power given by the HTS to

the tanks, PthF C is the thermal power provided by the fuel
cell, Pheater is the power which need to be provided by an
additional heater.
the controller needs to keep Pheater as low as possible
to avoid additional electrical costs of auxiliary, which will
degrade the efciency of the whole system. In this way, Pheater
is dened as an input of the controller P h as follow (14):
2Pheater
Ph =
100

Low

Opt

High

(13)
Degree of memebership

Pthtank (t) = PthF C (t) + Pheater (t)

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

SoC

Fig. 7: Membership function denition for batteries state of

charge
(14)


Good

High

Very high

cell current, the batteries current and the heater current. The
controller, taking into account the cost of the additional heater,
control the power of the fuel cell in order to keep the thermal
power needed by the tanks as low as possible.

Critical

0.8
0.6

Battery SoC profile

1

0.4

Battery SoC

Degree of memebership

0.2

0.5

0
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

4000

5000

6000

4000

5000

6000

time (s)

Fuel cell power

Pheater

Fig. 8: Membership function denition for the power needed

by the heater

FC Power (W)

1000

500

1000

2000

3000

time (s)
Shutdown

Low

Opt

High

Driving cycle

Very high

speed (m.s1)

Degree of memebership

1
0.8
0.6

60
40
20
0

1000

2000

3000

time (s)

0.4

Fig. 10: Battery SoC and fuel cell current for the simulated
driving cycle

0.2
0
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Fuel cell current

Fig. 9: Membership function denition for the output current

of the fuel cell

Fuel cell power( W)

Fuel cell power

1000

500

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

4000

5000

6000

4000

5000

6000

The fuzzy logic controller is selecting the ouput regarding

all the state of the input according to the fuzzy rules described
in TABLE IV. These rules has been dened from the study
presented in [8] and experimental test on hydrid tank system
within the vehicles architecture presented in [12].

Rate of heat flow (W)

time (s)
Heat power needed by tank
600
400
200
0

1000

2000

3000

time (s)

R ESULTS

150

The simulation is run on a postal delivery driving cycle

presented Fig. 3. Fig. 10 shows the output of the fuzzy
controller PF C regarding both batteries state of charge SoC
and vehicle speed v. It can be observed that the SoC is kept in
its good zone (TABLE II) and the fuel cell power is increased
during high power phases causes by high dynamic of the
vehicle.
Fig. 11 shows respectively the power of the fuel cell PF C ,
of the tank Pthtank and by the additional heater Pheater . It
can be observed that during the rst half of the simulation,
when the driving cycle has high dynamics, the fuel cell power
is set at a higher point than optimal value (TABLE III) in
order to maintain the state of charge of the batteries in the
good zone. Consequently, the power needed by the additional
heater is high and the range extender systems efciency is not
optimal. During the second phases, the power of the fuel cell
is controlled in order to avoid the use of the additional heater.
Fig. 12 focus on this part by presenting respectively the fuel


Pheater (W)

V.

Additional Heat power

100
50
0

1000

2000

3000

time (s)

Fig. 11: Metal hydrid tanks results

VI.

C ONCLUSION

A control strategy of a fuel cell electric vehicle with hydrid

tanks has been presented. The fuzzy controller include the
thermal management of the powertrain including heat transfer
between the fuel cell and the metal hydrid tank in order to
control the fuel cell power. A simulation of a realistic driving
cycle for postal delivery application has been run, showing the
good behavior of the controller. Future works aims to embed

TABLE IV: Fuzzy logic rules

SoClimit

SoClow

SoCgood

SoChigh

P hlimit

IF C min

IF C shutdown

IF C shutdown

IF C shutdown

P hvery high

IF C high

IF C good

IF C min

IF C min

P hhigh

IF C high

IF C good

IF C good

IF C min

P hgood

IF C very high

IF C high

IF C good

IF C shutdown

FC current (A)

Fuel cell current

35
30
25
20
15
4000

4500

5000

5500

6000

5500

6000

5500

6000

Battery current (A)

time (s)
Battery current
200
100
0
100
4000

4500

5000

Heater current (A)

time (s)
Additional Heat current
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
4000

4500

5000

time (s)

Fig. 12: Focus on the impact of the additional heat on the

control

the control inside the electronic control unit of each of the ten
vehicles which will be build for the project.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research work is carried out within the framework
of European project MobyPost which aims at developing the
concept of electric vehicles powered by fuel cells for delivery
application as well as local hydrogen production and associated
refueling station and hydrogen production apparatus from photovoltaic generators. MobyPost is a project funded under the
Grant Agreement no. 256834 by the European Unions seventh
Framework programme (FP7/2007-2013) for the Fuel Cell
and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative (http://mobypostproject.eu/).
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