Overview of Fuel Cell-Hybrid Power Sources Vehicle Technology: A Review

Abstract

Today, the world suffers from excessive and unfair consumption of non-renewable energy sources, such as high rate of global pollution and global warming. Accordingly, fields of life in general and industry in particular, led by the automobile industry, tended to use clean and renewable energy in industry and consumption to reduce the negative impacts on the global environment. The automotive industry tended to produce electric cars that do not depend at all on traditional energy sources from fossil fuel derivatives. Accordingly, it was necessary to find alternative energy sources that achieve both goals: avoiding the negative impact on the envi-ronment, and producing sufficient energy to achieve the requirements of performance and efficiency from the use of electric cars to be a permanent alternative to traditional cars that run on fossil fuels. This scientific paper provides an overview of one of the versions of modern technology in the field of electric vehicles energy performance to provide the vehicle with energy continuously and the mechanism of control and management in this system. This paper studies the hybrid power sources technology in electric and hybrid cars that depend on a main power source, Fuel Cells (FC), and a secondary power sources, Battery and Ultracapacitor, in the vehicle. This paper presents a brief overview of this system, its components, their characteristics, the advantages of hybridization in this type of energy source with the working mechanism of the system, an overview of the control systems in this technology and a set of challenges facing this type technology and its future perspectives.