Exploratory Research On Fuel Cell Control: Design Challenges For Emerging Applications

该项目的目标是为这些高度非线性和复杂的燃料电池动力系统开发设计和分析工具。我们不仅将控制理论用于反馈综合，而且还将揭示可实现性能的基本限制，并在系统设计的早期阶段做出架构决策。系统组件的紧密集成，以及电化学、热力学和反应器动力学之间的强烈相互作用，产生了无法用孤立的单个子系统的物理学来理解的动态现象。开发捕获这些动态现象的降阶模型，以及设计与燃料电池固有物理特征相协调的反馈控制器，是能够显著改善动态性能的及时研究方向。PI在非线性控制理论方面的强大背景，以及与联合技术研究中心的持续合作，将显著改善高动态负载的瞬态性能，并通过严格的设计权衡分析，以及先进的反馈和状态估计算法，减少昂贵的系统组件数量。

The objective of this project is to develop design and analysis tools for these highly nonlinear and complex fuel cell power systems. We will use control theory not only for feedback synthesis, but also to reveal fundamental limits of achievable performance, and to make architectural decisions at an early stage of system design. The tight integration of system components, and the strong interplay between electrochemistry, thermodynamics, and reactor kinetics, give rise to dynamic phenomena that cannot be understood with the physics of individual subsystems in isolation. The development of reduced-order models that capture these dynamic phenomena, and the design of feedback controllers that work in harmony with the inherent physical features of the fuel cell, are timely research directions that would dramatically improve dynamic performance. The PI's strong background in nonlinear control theory and ongoing collaboration with United Technologies Research Center will lead to significant improvements in transient performance for highly dynamic loads, and to reductions in the number of costly system components through rigorous analyses of design trade-offs, and advanced feedback and state estimation algorithms.