Control of proton exchange membrane fuel cell based on fuzzy logic

This paper presents a control strategy suitable for hydrogen/air proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), based on the process modeling using fuzzy logic. The control approach is tested using a PEMFC stack consisting of 32 cells with parallel channels. An optimal fuzzy-PI controller is designed to mainly control the hydrogen and air/oxygen mass flows, and auxiliary variables such as the temperature, pressure, humidity of the membrane, and proportion of stoichiometry. The fuzzy logic controller possesses many advantages over the PID controllers, such as a higher performance/cost ratio. It is shown experimentally that the optimal fuzzy-PI controller can improve the voltage and current performance of the system when the load changes.