Improving Small-scale Machine Learning with Recurrent Expansion for Fuel Cells Time Series Prognosis

The clean energy conversion characteristics of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have given rise to many applications, particularly in transportation. Unfortunately, the commercial application of PEMFCs is hampered by the early deterioration and low durability of the cells. In this case, accurate real-time condition monitoring plays an important role in extending the lifespan of PEMFCs through accurate planning of maintenance tasks. Accordingly, among the widely used modeling tools such as model-driven and data-driven, machine learning has received much attention and has been extensively studied in the literature. Small-scale machine learning (SML) and Deep Learning (DL) are subcategories of machine learning that have been exploited so far. In this context and since SML usually contains non-expansive approximators, this study was dedicated to improving its feature representations for better predictions. Therefore, a recurrent expansion experiment was conducted for several rounds to investigate a linear regression model under time series prognosis of PEMFCs. The results revealed that the prediction performance of SML tools under stationary conditions could be further improved.