Testing of a diagnostic technique for a single PEM fuel cell based on a DC/DC converter

This paper aims at testing the applicability of a previously proposed diagnostic method for PEM fuel cells, which exploits the ripple produced by switch-mode converters to monitor the fuel cell state of health. A low-voltage DC/DC boost converter has been designed for this purpose, suitable to be directly connected to a single cell. This paper shows how the cell response to the converter current ripple can be used to accurately estimate the cell ohmic resistance (which is a good indicator of the membrane humidity) with suitable elaboration algorithms. Experimental results confirm the applicability of this approach.