An Adaptive PI-PBC Approach for Voltage Regulation of a Fuel Cell based Power System

In this article, we addressed the issue of a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) voltage regulation when it is coupled to an uncertain load via a DC-DC boost converter. We demonstrate that a straightforward proportional-integral (PI) action designed using the passivity-based control (PBC) approach can regulate the voltage of the PEMFC boost converter system in spite of the intrinsic nonlinearities in the current-voltage behavior of the PEMFC. We show that for all positive values of the controller gains, the voltage converges to its set point. Moreover, a parameter estimator is afterward proposed with the Immersion and Invariance (I&I) theory, allowing the PI-PBC to regulate the output voltage of the system as the load changes.