A multi-scale fuel cell degradation prediction method based on isometric convolution block and long short-term memory networks

Abstract

Performance degradation prediction is considered an effective method to enhance the durability of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs). However, accurate prediction under dynamic conditions remains a challenge. The MSD-ICB-LSTM model is proposed to improve the accuracy of the performance degradation prediction, which incorporates the information from both long-term and short-term modes within the PEMFC history operating data. Firstly, redundant variables are removed from the data, and the noise is eliminated using locally weighted scatterplot smoothing (LOWESS) to raise the quality of the input samples. Secondly, the Multi-Scale Decomposition (MSD) method is used to decompose the pre-processed data into long-term and short-term modes. Thirdly, a combined module containing encoding, internal decomposition and a double-layer Isometric Convolution Block (ICB) is used to deeply explore the nonlinear degradation characteristics in the short-term mode, while a Long-Short-Term Memory Network (LSTM) is utilized to estimate the long-term mode. The final result of prediction is obtained by combining the predictions of two modes. The experimental results show that the prediction accuracy of the proposed MSD-ICB-LSTM model is 99.74% in R2，and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) are 0.0034 and 0.77%, respectively. Thus, the method can efficiently explore the multi-scale features and enhance the accuracy of PEMFC performance degradation prediction.