Robust quadratic boost converter for fuel cell application

Abstract

Conventional automobiles uses petroleum product as fuel for its propulsion system. This petroleum product are going to be finished within next few decades, as well as emits greenhouse gases and air pollutant which are responsible for global warming. Efficiency of petroleum based automobiles is also low. The issues of the conventional automobiles can be overcome by replacing it with electric vehicle. An electric vehicle uses fuel cell as primary source of energy. For this application there is requirement of high power dc-dc boost converter, which step-up load voltage as per as vehicle requirements. Switching frequency of conventional boost converter is limited which results reduction in voltage profile of dc bus, so for eliminating problem of switching frequency components of two boost converters are combined using a single switch, known as quadratic boost converter. This paper introduces a sliding mode controller based quadratic dc-dc boost converter for fuel cell system. The stability of the proposed controller is determine by Routh-Hurwitz and robust loop shaping criteria which decides the range of Kp and Ki in which the close loop system always operate in stable region. The testing of the designed controller verified by simulating whole system in MATLAB/Simulink 2013a.