Fuel Cell Hybrid Locomotive with Modified Fuzzy Logic Based Energy Management System

Abstract

As one of the most environmentally friendly energy sources today, fuel cells have become the focus of research in countries around the world, especially in the electric transportation field. This paper mainly studies the modeling of fuel cell hybrid locomotives (FCHL) including fuel cells, batteries, motors, and energy management systems. To increase the operating efficiency and improve the performance of FCHL, a modified fuzzy logic-based energy management system (MFL-EMS) is proposed and compared with the traditional power flow energy management system (PF-EMS). Meanwhile, a modified fuel cell hybrid power system model for locomotives is proposed, taking into account the traction motor features that, compared with a simplified controlled source load, can directly reflect the status of the locomotive running speed and the output power of the traction motor load. The proposed system parameters and configurations are determined by combining the characteristics of power and energy density, response characteristics, and charging/discharging characteristics of fuel cells and batteries. The precise simulation results revealed that adopting the proposed MFL-EMS in comparison to the traditional PF-EMS, reduced the hydrogen consumption by 2.943%. Comparing the battery output voltage, it is confirmed that with MFL-EMS it tends to be steeper than the one with PF-EMS, showing the proposed strategy’s robustness. Overall, the obtained results revealed an improved performance in terms of power distribution as well as SOC, which means less hydrogen consumption and therefore a more economical solution.