Advanced thermal management of automotive fuel cells using a model reference adaptive control algorithm Jaeyoung Han a , Sangseok Yu a,* , Sun Yi b a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34134, Republic of Korea b Department of Mechanical Engineering, North Carolina A&T State University, 1601 E Market St, Greensboro, NC, 27411, USA article info Article history: Received 19 August 2016 Received in revised form 4 October 2016 Accepted 24 October 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: PEMFC (proton exchange membrane fuel cell) Thermal management Feedback control MRAC (model reference adaptive control) Adaptive mechanism Algorithm abstract Temperature control is a critical issue to ensuring the reliable performance of fuel cell systems. However, nominal feedback controllers currently used to regulate system tem- perature have limitations, due to the high inherent nonlinearity in the systems, and un- certainty in the parameters of the models, especially in the presence of dynamic load variations. In this study, a feedback controller was designed including Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) to address uncertainties and robustly control the stack and the coolant inlet temperature in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The proposed controller was then evaluated by comparison with a nominal feedback controller. It was shown that if the parameters vary in the system the MRAC algorithm yields improved transient performances in terms of recovery speed and deviation in comparison to the nominal feedback control algorithm. The MRAC provides enhanced robustness. © 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction A fuel cell is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy, producing electricity, water, and heat without fossil fuels. For these reasons, fuel cells have been widely investigated as an alternative energy source [1e3]. Among the various types of fuel cells, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has demonstrated advantages in high power density, efficiency, low operating temperature, and fast start-up compared to other types of fuel cells [4e10]. In order to ensure satisfactory system performance, PEMFCs used in automotive applications must be controlled to operate in a wide range of conditions of mass flow, pressure, humidity of gas, and stack temperature. To accomplish this, it is important to accurately measure these system states using sensors (flow-meter, pressure, and thermocouples, etc.). This * Corresponding author. Fax: þ82 42 822 5642. E-mail address: sangseok@cnu.ac.kr (S. Yu). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (2016) 1 e14 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2016.10.134 0360-3199/© 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article in press as: Han J, et al., Advanced thermal management of automotive fuel cells using a model reference adaptive control algorithm, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2016.10.134