Current Mode Control strategy of switching Regulators for Fuel Cell

Abstract

Methods of energy production, storage and conversion have continuously been changing since the last two
decades of the 20th century. Before this transient time, human livelihood demanded energy mainly from the fossil sources.
But nowadays it is realized that pollution caused by these sources endanger the natural environment on which human
beings and other creatures depend on. In addition, today there is a lack of certainty on the amount of the untapped
reserves. On the other hand, the increase in world population and desire for high living standards demand more energy.
Today there is a realization that fossil fuels have inherent limitations and the future of the societies cannot depend on this
forever. For many years, looking for new and alternate energy sources has become a challenge for every country. Some
countries have addressed these challenges by utilizing alternate sources of energies like nuclear, solar, wind, tidal and
other clean energy resources. The main obstacles in using nuclear energy are nuclear waste and accessibility of nuclear
technology to every country. Moreover, other alternate energy sources such as the solar, wind, and tidal energies remain
unrealistic when it comes to supplying the world’s energy demand. The system proposed by us uses energy system, a fuelcell power module (polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells) along with a boost converter delivering a power of 900 W.
Results given by experiments confirm that the proposed controller performance for output voltage regulation changes
when done via closed-loop gain measurements and step load. Additionally, a comparison between open- and closed-loop
measurements is also made, where the controller robustness is tested for large load variations and also for fuel-cell stack
output voltage changes if any.