A Programmable Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Emulator Based on a DC-DC Synchronous Buck Converter

In the development of fuel cell (FC) systems and related control technologies, it is convenient to employ FC emulators instead of using real FC systems for the testing of various FC characteristic parameters and operating conditions. This paper proposes a low-cost, fast-response, and programmable proton exchange membrane FC (PEMFC) hardware emulator based on a two-switch DC-DC synchronous buck converter and a digital signal processor (DSP) acting as a kernel controller. The V-I characteristics and control signals of the emulated PEMFC are determined through system analysis, modeling, and digitalization of the PEMFC model. The developed PEMFC model is then used to construct a programmable user-interface module through C programming. The programmable digital module can be directly embedded into the DSP for simulation studies and experimental tests on various hardware integrated implementations of FCs. Results obtained from simulations and hardware tests are in good consistent with each other and both prove the correctness and effectiveness of the developed converter based PEMFC emulator.