Design and experimental validation of a robust control method for a hybrid Fuel Cell power generation system

In this article a robust control methodology is proposed for an hybrid power generation structure composed by a Fuel Cell and a Super-capacitor. The control strategy and the desired performances are written as inequality constraints so they can be solved using Linear Matrix Inequalities methods. Using this method a multivariable PI control with ℌ_∞ performance is computed, which is used to control the power converters associated with the Fuel Cell and the Super-capacitor respectively. The control performance in time and frequency domain is analyzed, with special interest in the control robust performance. The robust controller is implemented on a real-time test-bench with a Fuel Cell emulator. Results show the efficiency or the proposed methodology.