Model predictive humidity distribution control for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

The local membrane humidity is vital for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell performance since low or high humidity could promote accelerated degradation. This work proposes a model predictive control scheme to keep the spatially distributed membrane humidity within certain safety limits. A reduced-order prediction model, derived from a large-scale distributed-parameter fuel cell model, is used for computationally efficient control. The control scheme is tested in a simulation scenario with a high-resolution model as simulated plant. The results show that a desired power reference is tracked while avoiding too low and too high local membrane humidity thus avoiding damaging operating conditions.