Design and Implementation of the Off-Line Robust Model Predictive Control for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Abstract

An off-line robust linear model predictive control (MPC) using an ellipsoidal invariant set is synthesized based on an uncertain polytopic approach and then implemented to control the temperature and fuel in a direct internal reforming solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). The state feedback control is derived by minimizing an upper bound on the worst-case performance cost. The simulation results indicate that the synthesized robust MPC algorithm can control and guarantee the stability of the SOFC; although there are uncertainties in some model parameters, it can keep both the temperature and fuel at their setpoints.