Polymer electrolyte fuel cell stack emulator for automotive Hardware-In-the-Loop applications

This article presents a dynamic model based polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) stack emulator for automotive hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) purpose. The 1-D dynamic PEFC stack model implemented in the real-time emulator covers 3 major fuel cell physical domains: electrical, fluidic and thermal. The model is capable to predict the accuracy stack profiles in time and space scales. A novel fuel cell stack emulator structure design is presented. A digital data bus is used in the emulator platform and the electrical characteristic of the fuel cell stack is emulated by a simple boost DC/DC power converter.