The Whale Optimization Algorithm for efficient PEM fuel cells modeling

Abstract

Developing an accurate model is extremely important to design efficient proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) systems. The current work proposes the Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) for establishing an accurate and reliable PEMFC models. The idea is to increase accuracy of the extracted model parameters by minimizing error between the experimental and estimated polarization curves. WOA is utilized to mainly mitigate the effect of the local optimum stagnation and the premature convergence that appear with most of literature methods applied in this regard. The effectiveness of the WOA in modeling the PEMFC generators is demonstrated by conducting a series experiments using Heliocentris FC50 PEMFC test bench. In contrast to the existing works that characterized the behavior of the PEMFCs under fixed temperature values, the performance of developed model in providing accurate results is investigated under different operating conditions. The efficacy of the WOA is further checked using the data of two PEMFCs available in the literature, namely BCS-500W, and Ballard V. Besides, a comparison is done with some challenging literature techniques along with the necessary statistical analysis. The final results prove that the WOA has very competitive performance. The method has produced the lowest Mean Absolute Error (MAE) among all tested approaches, with values of MAE of 0.0589V, 0.2323V, and 0.2867V for Heliocentris FC 50, BCS, and Ballard fuel cells, respectively. Additionally, the constructed Heliocentris FC 50 model yields highly accurate results, especially under varying temperature values. Owing to this, it can be stated that the WOA a powerful modeling tool. Therefore, it is highly recommended to be employed for creating high-quality PEMFC models.