Implementation of a Fuel Cell Cooling Subsystem Controller Realized with an Avionic Control Unit

The present paper focuses on the implementation of an avionic control unit, i.e. the integrated modular avionics (IMA), into the cooling subsystem of a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell system. The implementation involves the control of testbed components ensuring interface compatibility, PI temperature control, serial communication between devices and the programming of the IMA specific operating system. From this, an implementation method is developed that can be applied to the remaining fuel cell subsystems. Further investigations of the IMA controller provide estimations on whether the entire fuel cell system control is feasible on the IMA. The IMA was implemented as a temperature controller into an experimental setup closely resembling the stand-alone cooling subsystem of a PEM fuel cell system. The necessary interfaces for the temperature control were identified and a PI controller was designed. The influences of the dead time delay of the system, the actuator model inaccuracies, the anti-windup methods and the modeling of the predictor were analyzed and a suitable solution for the design of a fast while precise and stable PI controller was crafted. The programming for the IMA operating system, which requires detailed configuration with resource budgeting and scheduling was completed and testing and analysis of the PI controller was carried out. The IMA has proven to be capable to control the thermal system and the implementation method is promising to work for other fuel cell subsystems as well.