A Novel Fuel Cell Simulator

The proposed fuel cell (FC) simulator emulates the electrical dynamic behavior of FC stacks. This is achieved by controlling a near time optimal switching mode power supply (SMPS). The reference signal for the SMPS that represents the dynamic behavior of the FC is generated using a single low cost FC or a FC model whose dynamic characteristics are scaled up by the SMPS to emulate the FC stack. Most electrochemistry research in FC is conducted with single cells. The proposed FC simulator can use a state-of-the-art single cell to emulate the behavior of a FC stack in order to drive a real application. This approach prevents possible results that depart from reality due to modeling inaccuracies. It also leads to cost and time savings for FC systems development. A 150 mW single direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is used in this work. A near time optimal SMPS, as well as the user interface and communication which interconnects the computer, the single FC and the DSP which controls the SMPS is described in this paper. The output of the FC simulator is a scale up of the dynamic behavior of an actual single FC, thus emulating a FC stack. The proposed simulator can be used for the design and development of FC power electronics