Industrial Robots Fuel Cell Based Hybrid Power-Trains: A Comparison between Different Configurations

Abstract

Electric vehicles are becoming more and more popular. One of the most promising possible solutions is one where a hybrid powertrain made up of a FC (Fuel Cell) and a battery is used. This type of vehicle offers great autonomy and high recharging speed, which makes them ideal for many industrial applications. In this work, three ways to build a hybrid power-train are presented and compared. To illustrate this, the case of an industrial robot designed to move loads within a fully automated factory is used. The analysis and comparison are carried out through different objective criteria that indicate the power-train performance in different battery charge levels. The hybrid configurations are tested using real power profiles of the industrial robot. Finally, simulation results show the performance of each hybrid configuration in terms of hydrogen consumption, battery and FC degradation, and dc bus voltage and current regulation.

Hybrid Power System for the Range Extension of Security Robots: Specification Development Phase

“…A passive structure [13][14][15][16] has no converters in its power network. The fuel cell and battery are directly connected to the load.…”

“…An active structure [13,17,18] contains converters in its power network. The fuel cell is coupled to the battery by a converter.…”

“…Ramos et al [13] introduced four hybrid structures, but only two were considered to be active (see Figure 2). One is referred to as a semi-active (SA) structure, and the other is referred to as a fully active (FA) structure.…”

“…Here, two-stage indi cates two converters in a power network. In terms of Ramos et al's work [13], the one-stage series is equivalent to the SA, and the two-stage series corresponds to the FA The novel configuration presented in this paper is the two-stage parallel structure where the battery is connected to the load in parallel. They theoretically assessed these three hybrid structures.…”

Modelling and Estimation of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries: A Review

“…Powering electric vehicles. Although the use of RFB in mobile applications is limited by their low energy density, they are well suited to be used in applications where weight and autonomy are not an issue, such as in urban electric buses [21,22]. Furthermore, in the future, high energy density RFBs could be competitive for powering a broader range of electric vehicles, with the particular advantage that, if necessary, they could be fastly recharged by renewing the tanks contents [23].…”