New modular hybrid energy storage system and its control strategy for a fuel cell locomotive

A new hybrid modular converter structure is proposed for a fuel cell railway vehicle. It uses a modular multilevel converter arm and a cascaded boost converter to interface the energy storage elements (batteries and supercapacitors). Novel control architecture is presented to control energy flow between the storage blocks, as well as vehicle speed-based energy management system. To validate the proposed converter, a system was sized, and simulated, for the refurbishment of a Class 150 DMU.