Nonlinear adaptive observation of the liquid water saturation in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

Efficiency, reliability and lifetime of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are significantly limited by inadequate water management. High-performance active control algorithms cannot be implemented due to the absence adequate online sensors that can measure internal liquid saturation. A promising technique applied in this context is state observer. However, cell models present strong nonlinearities, model uncertainty, unmatched unknown parameters sensor noise, which major difficulties observer design. The algorithm proposed work based on a time-varying adaptive observer, offers an estimation behaviour cathode catalyst layer PEMFC, coupled with low-power peaking-free dynamic dead-zone filtering used as high-performance soft sensor. shown provide accurate saturation transport even presence noise inaccuracies. results validated through numerical simulations real experimental prototype.