Fuel cell and ultracapacitor energy system control using linear quadratic regulator proportional integral controller

Application of fuel cell (FC) in power generation requires efficient power converters and controllers for hybridization of energy storage devices. This paper presents the control technique in a fuel cell and ultracapacitor hybrid system to eliminate the slow dynamic problem of FC. The control technique involves a linear quadratic regulator and proportional integral (LQR-PI) controller, where the FC boost converter and the UC bidirectional converter are controlled using a double-loop PI controller and a voltage-mode LQR controller, respectively. The simulation with different types of load was performed to compare the performance of the proposed controller with both PI and LQR controllers. The results revealed that the LQR-PI controller had better overshoot and undershoot responses (7.37% and 6.43%, respectively) than the proportional integral controller (11.47% and 11.42%, respectively) and linear quadratic regulator (23.87% and 21.5%, respectively). The energy sharing performance was verified through variation in load resistance and disturbances in bus voltage. The voltage recovery time of LQR-PI controller was slightly higher (200 ms) than that of the LQR controller (23.8 ms) and, however, lower than that of the PI controller (300 ms). The results revealed that the proposed controller is efficient for load voltage as well as load current fluctuations.