A Robust $\hbox{H}_{2}$-Consumption-Minimization-Based Energy Management Strategy for a Fuel Cell Hybrid Emergency Power System of More Electric Aircraft

Abstract

This paper presents a new real-time H ₂ -consumption-minimization energy management strategy for a fuel cell hybrid emergency power system of a more electric aircraft (MEA). Compared to existing H ₂ -consumption-minimization strategies based on the equivalent fuel consumption [such as the well-known equivalent consumption minimization strategy (ECMS)], the proposed strategy is less sensitive to the load profile, as the cost function to be optimized does not involve the evaluation of the equivalent fuel consumption, which strongly depends on the whole mission profile. This improves the robustness of the energy management system toward load profile variations, while minimizing the H ₂ consumption. Using two typical emergency mission profiles of an MEA, the performance of the proposed strategy is compared with the ECMS through simulations and experiments. Moreover, an off-line optimization-based algorithm is developed to ascertain the validity of the proposed strategy in terms of fuel consumption.