Control strategies for active power sharing in a fuel-cell-powered battery-charging station

This paper presents an effective system design for a fuel-cell-powered battery-charging station and three control strategies for active power sharing among the batteries. This battery-charging station allows multiple batteries to be simultaneously charged. Three control strategies were investigated to coordinate the active power distribution among the battery-charging branches. The baseline control strategy was equal rate charging. Two advanced control strategies, proportional rate charging and pulse current charging, were compared to the baseline strategy. These control strategies were realized in MATLAB/Simulink, and the current and voltage regulations were implemented using the classical proportional-integral control approach. The system simulation was conducted in the Virtual Test Bed by embedding Simulink objects of the controller and co-simulating with MATLAB. The experimental tests were performed by compiling Simulink codes of the controller and downloading to the dSPACE platform to control real hardware. The simulation and experimental results are given. Experimental tests validate these control strategies.