Energy Management and Optimal Control

Strategies of Fuel cell/Supercapacitors Hybrid

Vehicle
M.N. Sid1, K. Nounou1, M. Becherif2, K. Marouani1 and H. Alloui1

Abstract -- In this paper, an energy management strategy

(EMS) based on optimal control theory is applied to a hybrid
vehicle propelled by fuel cell and supercapacitors pack. In
order to show the effectiveness of this strategy, another EMS
based on thermostat method is proposed and compared with
the first one. Firstly, the power sources used in this study are
presented with the electrical model of each one, and the hybrid
architecture is given. Then, the EMS based on optimal control
is expressed, where the minimization of the hydrogen
consumption is its objective as well as the supercapacitor state
of charge control. Then, the thermostat method strategy, which
is a simple control method based on rules imposed by the limits
of the power sources is applied. These two EMSs have been
simulated using Matlab/Simulink. The results indicate the
effectiveness of the energy management based on optimal
control, which leads to improving the fuel consumption and a
good control of the auxiliary source.

Index Terms-- Energy management strategy, Fuel cell,

Optimal control, Supercapacitors, Thermostat strategy.

I.

INTRODUCTION

lectric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles have attracted more

and more attention by automakers, governments, and
customers in conjunction with more rigorous regulations on
emissions, fuel economy, global warming, and constraints on
energy resources [1]. In order to improve this interesting
field, research efforts and development have focused on the
development of new concepts, low-cost architectures, and
more control strategies.
Accordingly, the energy management strategy (EMS) is one
of the most important issues for the efficiency and
performances of electric vehicle (EV). Particularly, in hybrid
electric vehicle (HEV), where the propulsion energy is
delivered by a combination of different power sources. In
this context, more attention has been paid to the energy
management control of fuel cell HEVs, in which, the proton
exchange membrane fuel cell (PEM-FC) is the most likely
candidate, due to essentially zero CO2 and other hazardous
emissions, high-energy efficiency, and relatively low
operating temperature [2-3]. However, as the main
drawbacks of FCs are: the high cost, short lifetime and limit
dynamic response, commonly a single or many appropriate
auxiliary power sources are added to the FC. So, adding an
appropriate auxiliary power source to the FC adds an
additional degree of freedom to the operation strategy of the
vehicle, and contributes to the energy efficiency according to
the driving conditions.
The study presented in this paper deals with a HEV
having a FC as a main energy source and supercapacitors
(SCs) stack as an auxiliary power source. Thus, the FC
1

Laboratoire Commande des Machines Electriques, Ecole Militaire

Polytechnique (EMP), Bordj El Bahri, Algiers, Algeria. (email:Sidmednacer@hotmail.fr).
2
UTBM, FCLab FR CNRS 3539, Femto-ST UMR CNRS 6174, 90010
Belfort, France.

978-1-4799-4389-0/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

supplies the power required for vehicle propulsion at steady

regime whereas the supercapacitor supplies the peak power
for transient regimes and captures the braking energy
regeneration. This article focuses on the optimal power
sharing between the two electrical sources (FC and SCs), in
order to minimize as much as possible the hydrogen
consumption and simultaneously maintaining the SC state of
charge.
II.

HYBRID POWER SOURCES

A.

Fuel Cell (FC)

A FC is an energy conversion device that directly converts
the chemical energy of a fuel (hydrogen) into electricity [1].
This energy is released whenever hydrogen reacts
chemically with the oxygen of air. The reaction occurs
electrochemically and the energy is released as a
combination of low-voltage DC electrical energy and heat.
In the literature, Alkaline FC, Polymer Electrolyte
Membrane FC, Direct Methanol FC, Phosphoric Acid FC,
Molten Carbonate FC and Solid Oxide FC can be founded as
FC types. The Types of FCs depend mainly on the type of
electrolyte they utilize. The PEMFCs are nowadays the most
promising FC type for automotive use and have been used in
most current prototypes [4].
There are four basic elements of a PEMFC: anode,
cathode, electrolyte and catalyst which is a special material
that facilitates the reaction of oxygen and hydrogen and it is
typically made of a very thinly platinum powder.
Basically, it is known that hydrogen atom (H) is
composed of one electron (e-) and one proton (H+ ions). Fig.
1 presents the pressurized hydrogen molecule (H2), where
one hydrogen molecule has two protons and two electrons,
entering the FC on the anode side. This gas is forced through
the catalyst by pressure. When a H2 molecule comes in
contact with the platinum on the catalyst, it is split into two
protons and two electrons, known as electric current. The
electrons are conducted through the anode, where they make
their way through the external circuit and return to the
cathode side of the FC. The chemical reaction at anode side
can be written as follows [5]:
(1)
H 2
2H 2e
Meanwhile, on the FC cathode side, a half oxygen
molecule (one oxygen atom (1/ 2)O2 ) is being forced
through the catalyst.
The chemical reaction at cathode side can be written as
follows:
1
(2)
O2 2 H 2e
H 2O
2
Combining the anode and cathode reactions, the overall
cell reaction is as follows:

1
2

2293

O2 H 2
H 2O Heat Electrical Energy

(3)

III.

MODELLING OF HYBRID DC SOURCES

A.

Structure of the hybrid source

As shown in Fig. 3, the studied system comprises a DC
link supplied by a FC and a non-reversible DC-DC Boost
converter, and an auxiliary source (SCs), which is connected
to the DC link through a current reversible DC-DC
converter.
Both sources maintain the DC voltage U DC to its

Fig. 1. Fuel cell operation diagram [6].

The main drawbacks of FCs are there high cost, a short

lifetime functioning and a limit dynamic response. Thus, the
SC is expected to compensate this last drawback until the FC
reaches its rate power, concerning its cost it is expected to
diminish with the technology progress. In the other hand,
many researches improve the FCs lifetime by multiobjective optimization including the fuel consumption and
the optimal sizing of the sources [7].
Supercapacitors(SC)
The use of SCs in embedded systems is quite suitable
because of their appropriate characteristics in term of high
power capacitance, low serial resistance and their short
response time. The SC offers very high capacitance in a
small package. Rather than a battery, the SC is an energy
storage system (ESS) based on static charge process not on
electro-chemical reaction. The high surface electrode
material, also called Double Layer Capacitor (Fig. 2) stores
the energy in the double layer formed near the carbon
electrode surface. The electrolyte may be aqueous or
organic. The aqueous variety offers low internal resistance
but limits the voltage to one volt. In contrast, the organic
electrolyte allows 2.5 volts of charge, but the internal
resistance is higher. To operate at higher voltages, SCs are
connected in series and voltage balancing is required for
each set of capacitors to protect any cell from over-voltage
[9].

reference value U DC . The function of FC is to supply the

mean power to the load, whereas the storage device is used
as a power source: it supplies peak loads required during
acceleration and braking.

B.

Fig. 3. Structure of the hybrid power source.

As indicated in Fig. 3, VFC, iFC, LFC and T1 are the FC

voltage, current, inductance and transistor, respectively. VSC,
isc, Lsc, T2 and T3 are successively the SCs voltage, current,
inductance and transistors. VDC, iDC and CDC are the DC bus
voltage, current and capacitor, respectively.
The electric power balance in the vehicle is given as
follows:

PLoad (t ) PFC (t ) PSC (t )

(4)

For simplicity and without loss of generality, the losses

of the power converters are neglected.
B. Fuel cell model
The output voltage of a single cell VFC can be defined as
the result of the following static and nonlinear expression:

VFC E Vact Vohm Vconcent

(5)

where: E is the thermodynamic potential of the cell. Vact is

the voltage drop due to the activation of the anode and of the
cathode. Vohm is the ohmic voltage drop associated to the

Fig. 2. Supercapacitor charge separation [9].

The specifics of SC construction are dependent on its

application and use. The materials may differ slightly from
manufacturer or due to specific application needs. The
commonality among all SCs is that they consist of a positive
electrode, a negative electrode, a separator between these
two electrodes, and an electrolyte filling the porosities of the
two electrodes [8].

conduction of the protons through the solid electrolyte and

electrons through the internal electronic resistances. Vconcent
represents the voltage drop resulting from the concentration
or mass transportation of the reacting gases [9].
Each term of (5) can be calculated as follows:

2294

IV.

iFC in
Vact A log

i0

Vohm Rm iFC in

i i
V
b log 1 FC n
concent

ilim

ENERGY MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

In this section, two EMSs are presented with comparative

study between them. Firstly, the EMS based on optimal
control, which has as objective to minimize the hydrogen
consumption as well as the control of the supercapacitor
state of charge, is presented. Next, the EMS based on
thermostat principle, which is a simple control strategy
based on rules imposed by the limits of the power sources, is
introduced. Finally, simulation results of both EMS are
presented and compared, in terms of fuel consumption
reduction and effectiveness control of the auxiliary source.

(6)

A. EMS based on optimal control theory

In order to have an optimal control solution for the energy
management, it is necessary to introduce a cost function.
This cost function should be minimized on the totality of the
trip profile. The cost function can be formulated as follows
[13]:
tf

Fig 4. A typical polarization curve for a PEMFC.

iFC

is the delivered current;

current; B is the constant in the mass transfer; in is the

internal current and Rm is the membrane and contact
resistances.
C. Modeling of the supercapacitor
A SC can be modelled as an equivalent circuit with
constant parameters as shown in the fig. 5 [10]:

Fig 5. Supercapacitor electrical model [11].

(7)

The amount of charge (in coulombs) stored in the

capacitor is proportional to the potential across its terminals.
The relationship between voltage, capacitance, and charge is
given as follows [11]:

Q CSCU SC

The SoC rate of change is as follows [12]:

.
iSC
SoC
CSCU SC , MAX

(10)
(11)

t f are the initial and the final times of the driving cycle,

respectively.
To find u (t ) such that the cost function J is minimized
subject to the following constraints: the operating ranges of
the FC and the SC should be appropriately restricted to
protect the high-power equipment from damage (constraints
(13) and (15)). In the other hand, the rate of change of the
FC power also should be limited to ensure that the air
compressor (which has a slow dynamic response) can cope
with the power fluctuations (constraint (14)) [10]:
(13)
PFC ,min PFC (t ) PFC ,max

dPFC (t )
PFC ,rise rate
dt
SoC(t ) SoCmax

PFC , fall rate

(14)

SoCmin

(15)

The relationship between the power

PLoad

required to

propel the vehicle, the FC power PFC and the SC power

PSC is given as:

PFC (t ) PLoad (t ) PSC (t )

(8)

Based on the time derivative of the capacitor charge, the

relationship between SC current and voltage can be
determined and given as in (9). The current flowing into or
out of the SC is related to the change rate of its voltage.
dU SC
dQ
(9)
I
CSC
dt
dt
The SC effective voltage is determined as follows [12]:

U SC SoCU SC ,MAX R iSC

where x(t ) is the state vector, u (t ) is the input vector and t0

The system state equation, which describes the dynamics

of the SoC state variable, is given by:
.
iSC (t ).SoC (t )
(16)
SoC
CSC (U SC Ri SC (t ))

The SC modeled is written as follows:

U SC VS RI SC

PSC U SC I SC

(12)

t0

i0 is the exchange
current; A is the slope of the Tafel line; ilim is the limiting
where:

f ( x(t ), u (t ), t )

(17)

The performance criterion chosen is to minimize the

delivered total FC power, which corresponds to the
minimization of the hydrogen consumption [14].
At given driving cycle from time

t0

to time

t f and taking

the state equation (16) as a dynamic constraint of the optimal

control problem, the performance criterion J can be
expressed as follows:
tf

J PFC (t ) q(t f , x(t f ))dt

(18)

t0

The SoC of the SC has to be controlled accurately. This

means that the SoC at the end of the driving cycle should be
2295

the same as it was at the beginning [15]. Therefore, this

condition is imposed as a soft constraint in the terminal cost
and defined as follows:

q(t f , x(t f )) (SoC (t0 ) SoC (t f )) 2

(19)

As said before, the objective of the optimal control

problem is to minimize the total fuel consumption. Thus, its
necessary condition is given when the variation of the
performance J is minimal.
Introducing the Hamiltonian H, which is defined as [16]:
H PFC (t ) p.q(t f , x(t f ))
(20)

PFC_max. The diagram given by fig.6 shows the operation

range of this strategy. However, this technique cannot satisfy
the power requested by the load for all operating conditions
(if PFC>PFC-max and SoC<SoClow). In the same way the fuel
minimization concept is not taken into account by this
strategy.
SoC
SoChig

Where p is the Lagrange multiplier, also called the

costate variable. The only cost function in this section
(equation (18)) is the first term inside of the integration sign,
which is related to the fuel consumption.
Then the necessary conditions that derive optimal
trajectories are as follows:

.
H

SoC
p

.
H
p

SoC
H
P 0
SC

SoClow
PFC

Fig 6: Thermostat method principle.

(21)

V.

In order to obtain the optimal results, the necessary

conditions in (21) should be satisfied all the time. The first
necessary condition is the state equation (16), which is a
constraint of the optimal control problem.
The second necessary condition is called the costate
equation that determines the optimal trajectory of the costate
p when the initial value of the costate is given.
with:
.
H ( x *(t ), u *(t ), p(t ))
(22)
p(t )
2( x(t ) x(t0 ))
x
and:

SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

To evaluate the proposed EMSs at real driving conditions,

the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) was applied with
a vehicle dynamic model. Table 1 presents the main vehicle
characteristics. DC machine is used as vehicle traction motor
and fed by the previous hybrid sources (Fig. 3) connected to
the DC bus, which is regulated to the rated machine voltage
(400V). Table 2 gives the parameters values used in the
simulation.

tf

p(t ) p0 2 ( x(t ) x(t0 )).dt

PFC_max

PFC_min

(23)

TABLE I
VEHICLE MODEL SPECIFICATIONS
Vehicle model specifications
Symbol
Vehicle total mass
M
Frontal area

2.3 m2

Drag coefficient
Coefficient of rolling friction

Cd

0.335

fr

0.009

Air density

1.2 kg.m3

Gravity

9.8 m.s 2

t0

TABLE II
SIMULATION PARAMETERS

The third necessary condition determines the optimal

trajectory of the control variable PSC as follows:

B. EMS based on thermostat principle:

This strategy consists, as its name indicates it, in the use
of certain rules on the ESS SoC and on the FC energy source
related to the amount of power that could provide. This
strategy is a very simple to implement, because it is based on
the imposition of the power limits indicated by the
manufacturer. Thus, the SoC is maintained between two
terminals, lower and higher preset SoClow and SoChig and
two other indicated power limits for the FC P FC_min and
2296

Parameter
Maximum FC power

Value

20 kW

Minimum FC power
Maximum SoC
Minimum SoC
Initial co-state value

800 W
90%
30%

1.05x103

140
Speed achieved by the vehicle
Speed requested by the vehicle

120
100

Speed(kph)

*
(24)
PSC
arg min H (SOC* (t ), PSC (t ), p* )
To implement the algorithm, it is assumed that the driving
cycle is known a priori. This gives us the final time as well
as the initial and final SoC values. Which left is to find the
initial co-state value (the Lagrange multiplier). So, c
considering that it has a single value which is appropriate for
an optimal trajectory with the maintenance of the ESS SoC.
Also, the initial co-state value is obtained by the
implementation of an algorithm of dichotomy using a
graphic approach. Nevertheless, this value is not completely
exact and it changes with the driving cycle and the initial

Value

1400 kg

80
60
40
20
0
0

200

400

600
Time(s)

800

1000

Fig. 7. New European driving cycle (NEDC).

1200

x 10

Vehicle power
FC power
SC power

x 10

Vehicle power
FC power
SC power

Powers(w)

Powers(w)

0
-1

-1

-2

-3

-2

200

400

600

800

1000

800

1200

850

900

950

1000

1050

1100

1150

Time(s)

Time(s)

Fig. 12. Power response of the sources (sub-urban driving cycle EUDC).

Fig. 8. Power response of the sources under thermostat strategy.

75

80

70
65

Supercapacitors SoC(%)

Supercapacitors SoC(%)

70

60

50

40

60
55
50
45
40
35
30

30

25
0

200

400

600
Time(s)

800

1000

1200

x 10

Vehicle power
FC power
SC power

Powers(w)

-1

-2

-3
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Time(s)

Fig. 10. Power response of the sources using optimal control strategy.
4

1.5

x 10

Vehicle power
FC power
SC power

Powers(w)

0.5

-0.5

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

600
Time(s)

800

1000

1200

Figure 7 shows that the vehicle speed response is well

established according to the NEDC. Also, the corresponding
power response of the sources obtained for both strategies is
shown in Fig. 8 and 10. It is clear that the power, required on
the totality of the tested profile, is ensured by the sum of the
FC power and the power provided or absorbed by the ESS,
of course taking into account the power sources constraints.
The trajectory of the SoC of the ESS in the case of
thermostat strategy and the optimal control strategy are
shown in Fig. 9 and 13, respectively. It can be noted that the
SoC respects its reference value under optimal control
strategy, which is assured by the expression added to the
cost function to ensure the same initial and final SoC of the
SC. Also, Fig. 14 shows the comparison between the two
energy management strategies in term of the fuel economy.
The results show that the energy management based on the
optimal control leads to a good reduction of the hydrogen
consumption (allowed about 18% of fuel consumption
reduction), a good control of the SoC and a stability during
the FC operation, while respecting the limits imposed by the
sources.

-1

400

Fig. 13. SC SoC under optimal control strategy.

Fig. 9. SC SoC under thermostat strategy.

4

200

180

200

Time(s)

Fig. 11. Power response of the sources (European urban cycle ECE15).

2297

0.25

[11]

thermostat strategy
Optimal control

Fuel consumption (g)

0.2

[12]
0.15

[13]
0.1

[14]

0.05

0
0

[15]
200

400

600
Time(s)

800

1000

1200

Fig. 14: Evolution of fuel consumption during the driving cycle.

VI.

[16]

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, an EMS based on optimal control theory is

presented and evaluated. The problem of the optimal control
under constraints was formulated under certain assumptions
and solved using Pontryagins minimum principle to find the
optimal solution of the energy management task.
In order to evaluate this strategy in terms of fuel
consumption reduction and effectiveness control of the
auxiliary source, the EMS based on thermostat principle,
which is a simple control strategy based on rules imposed by
the limits of the power sources, is introduced.
Both strategies have been tested on the same driving
cycle, respecting the dynamic constraint of each source with
a reduction in the fuel consumption in case of optimal
control due to the good control of the state of charge of the
ESS. Nevertheless, in case of optimal control it is necessary
to know the entirety of the driving cycle to be able to solve
the optimization problem.
VII.
[1]

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VIII.

BIOGRAPHIES

Mohamed Nacereddine Sid received the B.Sc. in electrical engineering

from the University of Djelfa, Djelfa, in 2011. He is currently preparing the
M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Ecole Militaire
Polytechnique (EMP), Algiers, Algeria,
His main research interests the control of electrical drives and power
electronics. Electric and hybrid vehicle control and power management.
Kamal Nounou received his Degree of Engineer on electrical engineering
in 2007 and M.Sc. in electromagnetics systems in 2013, from the Ecole
Militaire Polytechnique (EMP), Algiers, Algeria.
His research interests electrical drives and power generation.
Mohamed Becherif obtained his BSc in Automatic Control from the
National Polytechnic School of Algeria, DEA (Diplme des Etudes
Approfondies) in Electrical Engineering from University of Paris SudSuplec (LSS & LGEP-CNRS), and the PhD in Automatic Control from
University of Paris Sud-Suplec (LSS & LGEP-CNRS), France in 1999,
2001 and 2004 respectively. He was a Lecturer in University of Paris Sud,
France from 2004 to 2005. Then, he joined the University of Technology of
Belfort-Montbliard, France since 2005 as an assistant professor and is an
Associate Professor (HDR) since 2011. Currently he is in the FCLab FR
CNRS 3539 and with Femto-ST UMR 6174 CNRS, France.
His research interests are in the fields of modelling, nonlinear control and
energy management of hybrid and renewable systems, with special
emphasis on applications. He is the Chairman of the CNRS scientific axis
on the Hydrogen storage and renewable energies in FCLab.
Dr. Becherif is co-author of more than 150 journal and conference papers.
Khoudir Marouani received the Degree of Engineer in automatics,
Magister and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Ecole Militaire
Polytechnique (EMP), Algiers, Algeria, in 1996, 2000 and 2010,
respectively.
He is currently working as a Research and Teaching Assistant with the
Electrical Engineering Laboratory at EMP. His research interests include
power electronics, electrical drives and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV).
Alloui Hamza received his engineering and M.Sc. degrees on electrical
engineering from the born in Constantine, Algeria of Algiers in 2004, 2013
respectively. He is a member at the Electrical Machines Control Laboratory
in Ecole Militaire Polytechnique (EMP) since 2005.

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