Adaptive high-order sliding mode control for proton exchange membrane fuel cell air-feed system based on high-gain observer

The proficient control algorithms for the air-feed system of proton exchange membrane fuel cell can significantly improve the output net power and prevent the polymeric membranes deterioration. To this end, a novel adaptive high-order sliding mode (HOSM) control method for air feed system is proposed in this paper. There are several meaningful contributions. Firstly, in order to reduce the number of redundant sensors and overall cost, the high-gain observer is implemented to estimate unmeasured tracking error derivatives. Secondly, without the priori knowledge of accurate dynamic model and parameters, the proposed adaptive HOSM controller ensures a real sliding mode established in finite time and a continuous control input signal to the motor. Thirdly, based on the estimated tracking error derivatives, the developed adaptive schemes guarantee the control gain would not be overestimated without the information about the bounds of the uncertainties/perturbations, which significantly suppresses the formidable chattering caused by high frequency switching of the control signal. Finally, the robustness and effectiveness of the adaptive HOSM controller are indicated by numerical simulations and hardware-in-loop experiments.