High Gain Converter with Improved Radial Basis Function Network for Fuel Cell Integrated Electric Vehicles

Balasubramanian Girirajan,Wen-Cheng Lai,Hariraj Kumar Jagannathan,Himanshu Shekhar,Parameshachari Bidare Divakarachar

doi:10.3390/wevj13020031

Abstract

In a recent trend, electric vehicles (EV) have been facing various power quality issues, so fuel cells (FC) are considered the best choice for integrating EV technology to enhance performance. A fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) is a type of EV that uses a fuel cell combined with a small battery or super-capacitor to power its on-board electric motor. However, the power obtained from the FC system is much less and is not enough to drive the EV. So, another energy source is required to deliver the demanded power, which should contain high voltage gain with high conversion efficiency. The traditional converter produces a high output voltage at a high duty cycle, which generates various problems, such as reverse recovery issues, voltage spikes, and less lifespan. High switching frequency and voltage gain are essential for the propulsion of FC-based EV. Therefore, this paper presents an improved radial basis function (RBF)-based high-gain converter (HGC) to enhance the voltage gain and conversion efficiency of the entire system. The RBF neural model was constructed using the fast recursive algorithm (FRA) strategy to prune redundant hidden-layer neurons. The improved RBF technique reduces the input current ripple and voltage stress on the power semiconductor devices to increase the conversion ratio of the HGC without changing the duty cycle value. In the end, the improved RBF with HGC achieved an efficiency of 98.272%, vehicle speed of 91 km/h, and total harmonic distortion (THD) of 3.12%, which was simulated using MATLAB, and its waveforms for steady-state operation were analyzed and compared with existing methods.

Highlights

This paper presents high‐gain converter (HGC) converter topologies used to interface the fuel cell to the motor controllers in HEVs
In this work, improved radial basis function (RBF) was proposed for a high‐gain converter with continuous input and output current, which was introduced to achieve better efficiency and speed of
Performance parameters like power loss, efficiency, and total harmonic distortion (THD) analysis were established to prove the high efficiency of the proposed topology in Fuel cells (FC)‐connected systems

Summary

Introduction

EVs inevitably became the most ideal technological solution in the automobile industry sector [3] These EVs need an electric power source to supply power to the motor that runs the vehicle. This power source comprises a battery that needs to be charged when the power is completely discharged [4]. FCs provide good proficiency and presentation for the duration of the steady‐state process, but the response time of FCs in the course of transient conditions is unsatisfactory [6,7] To overcome these challenging factors, the FC system should be connected to a high‐gain converter that has a good transient and steady‐state response to come across the total power necessity of the EV in both conditions [8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion