Hydrogen Fuel Cell Based Low Power DC Motor Driven Energy Efficient Electric Vehicle: A Comparative Analysis

Production of electric vehicles is increasing day by day because of the rising price of non-renewable energy resources and pollution created by utilizing it. Hydrogen fuel cells are the outcome of relatively recent technological development as a power source for electric vehicles. This paper presents various parametric analyses of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) based electric vehicle which is driven by a relatively low power electrical dc motor. A lightweight electric vehicle is considered where the maximum power rating of the PEMFC is 12 kW and its voltage rating is 50 V. Output voltage of the fuel cell stack is too low to power the motor of the electric vehicle directly. Therefore, a dc-dc boost converter is connected to the PEMFC to increase its output voltage so that it can drive the dc motor. In the vehicle, two separately excited dc motors with different properties are analyzed. The motor is powered by two different dc-dc boost converters. One is for field excitation and the other is for armature. The fuel cell, converters, and electric motor are simulated by using MATLAB-Simulink software. Various parameters of the fuel cell, converters, and electric motor are presented and compared. It is found that selection of proper parameters of the motor can improve the overall performance of the electric vehicle and utilization of fuel cell is increased to a great extent.