Fuel-cell and Battery Hybrid Source Optimal Power Management for Electric Mobility

Some electric vehicles include a fuel cell stack and a battery pack. A power allocation strategy is required in order to provide the cruise power demand efficiently. We propose an active power control strategy based on the optimal control theory. The defined cost function takes into account the driving power requests as well as the fuel cell stack power magnitude. This function can be easily extended in order to include additional energy costs. The optimal solution represents the best tradeoffs among all different cost function components. For realtime implementation, we propose a single step optimization strategy. The simulation of this system with the proposed optimal strategy shows a reduction of the battery pack discharge rates and the total energy used for the different driving cycles.