A Fuzzy Model Feed Forward Predictive Control of the Nonlinear Tubular Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell System

Abstract

The solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is broadly used for distributed and clean power generation. The main problem related to SOFC lies in the difficulties to control the output voltage of the SOFC due to the strong nonlinearity, the rapid changes of the load and the limited fuel flow. The objective of the control of the SOFC system is to maintain the output voltage at a constant level and the fuel utilization rate in a safety interval. In this context, a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) discrete-time Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy dynamic model with feed forward input is used in this paper to describe the dynamic properties of the nonlinear voltage and the fuel utilization rate in a tubular SOFC system. This obtained fuzzy model will be used for the application of constrained fuzzy model predictive control. The simulation results are provided to show the accuracy and the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.