Optimal design methodology for sizing a fuel cell/battery hybrid power source

Abstract

This paper presents an optimal design methodology enabling to exhibit the best parameters of a complex energy system combing several components and their related control parts. It is based on a particle swarm optimization technique for component sizing, combined with optimal control to consider energy management constraints. This approximate resolution is valuable since it allows to achieve a robust and effective optimal design using low computational resources: it enables to tackle large search spaces in engineering time constraints. The selected use case is a fuel cell/battery hybrid power source based on a power-split parallel architecture. Its performance index is defined as the fuel consumption. Regarding this objective, the drivetrain components size and the control parameters values are both strongly coupled and physically constrained. In this context, the methodology makes a tradeoff between component sizing and energy saving. Simulation results show the relevance and robustness of this approach regarding different driving cycles and operating conditions. It validates the replicability of this method to other optimization problems in the field of energy optimization. A comprehensive review of the simulation tests highlights the present limits of this optimization and provides new perspectives for future works.