Design and Control of a Fuel Cell Hybrid Energy Storage System: A Nonlinear Modeling and Sliding Mode Control Approach

This paper proposes a novel control approach for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC)-Battery-Supercapacitor Hybrid Energy Storage Systems (HESS) to address energy management and control challenges. A filter-based rule Energy Management Strategy (EMS) is developed to ensure efficient current allocation between the fuel cell and battery. Additionally, a Super-Twisting Sliding Mode hybrid controller combining a Saturation function (SAT) and Hyperbolic Tangent function (TANH) is introduced to achieve rapid convergence while mitigating chattering through threshold-based switching. A Lyapunov-based voltage controller is further designed to generate the supercapacitor’s reference current and ensure precise DC bus voltage tracking, with system stability verified via Lyapunov analysis. Simulation results validate the proposed method’s effectiveness in dynamic conditions, showcasing robust energy allocation, accurate current and voltage tracking, and strong resilience against external disturbances, providing a reliable solution for HESS in complex scenarios.