A New Scheme on Robust Unknown Input Nonlinear Observer for PEM Fuel Cell Stack System

Mohamed Benallouch (1) , Rachid Outbib (2) , Mohamed Boutayeb (1) , Edouard Laroche (3)

1 CRAN - Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy
2 LSIS - Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Information et des Systèmes
3 LSIIT - Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Image, de l'Informatique et de la Télédétection

This paper presents an unknown input observer design method for a class of nonlinear systems in the presence of disturbances in both the systems dynamics and the output. The main motivation of this work is to develop a state estimator for PEM-Fuel Cell Stack systems. More precisely, the paper addresses the observation issue of the main variables of the fuel cell systems that are the compressor speed, the supply manifold pressure, the mass of the gas accumulated in the supply manifold volume, the partial pressure of oxygen and the partial pressure of nitrogen in the cathode channel. The proposed approach considers the current as an unknown input and uses the air flow rate through the compressor and the total pressure as measurements. By means of regular transformations, the Jacobian of the nonlinear functions and the convexity principle, the observer design problem is turned into a LMI feasibility problem. Simulation results with a refined model show the good convergence properties of the observer.

Mots clés: Fuel cell stacks; H-infinity performance; state and unknown input estimation; nonlinear observer; linear matrix inequalities

Domaines: Automatique / Robotique

Mohamed Benallouch, Rachid Outbib, Mohamed Boutayeb, Edouard Laroche. A New Scheme on Robust Unknown Input Nonlinear Observer for PEM Fuel Cell Stack System. 3rd IEEE Multi-conference on Systems and Control (MSC 2009), Jul 2009, Saint Petersburg, Russia. pp.CD-ROM. ⟨hal-00440641⟩