Control of a fuel cell stack loaded with DC/DC boost converter

This paper deals with control of the fuel cell stack with DC/DC boost converter connected at its output. Feed-forward and feedback controllers of the fuel cell system are designed independently of the boost converter. The voltage control of the boost converter is realized through its input voltage, using fuel cell stack as an actuator, while the PWM duty cycle is left constant. The boost converter output voltage PI controller is designed as an inner control loop, and model reference adaptive controller with signal adaptation algorithm is designed as an outer control loop. The simulation results show that designed adaptive controller is robust to changes of the operating point, mostly determined by the stack current.