Description

The work is focused on the operation and dynamic control of PEM fuel cells systems and its principal objective is to design and implement supervisory control systems for their reliable, efficient and long lasting operation.
One of the most important issues in PEM fuel cells operation is the difficulty to know their internal state, which affects significantly the cell efficiency and durability. Since PEM fuel cells are closed systems and sensors can not be introduced in their inside, observation and diagnostics tools are required to describe their internal state. Therefore, supervisory control systems that are based on dynamic models and integrate diagnostics and/or observation have to be developed in order to obtain efficient and long lasting operations.
The proposed thesis work would include the following phases: bibliographic study and analysis of the different controllers described for PEM fuel cell systems, determination of the new control objectives addressed, adaptation of the existing dynamic models to the new control objectives, determination of the necessary control strategies, design of the control system, implementation of the control system and experimental validation of the control system.

The work is under the scope of the following projects:

• COSIN: Combustibles sintètics (web)
• INN-BALANCE: Innovative cost improvements for balance of plant components of automotive PEMFC systems (web)