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The major breakthroughs that have recently brought fuel cells to the fore-front include the development of low resistance membranes, highly diffusive electrodes, and reduced use of noble metal catalysts. However, in order to obtain the maximum efficiency out of a fuel cell, some parameters like flow control, temperature, water flow and load must be controlled. This paper is focused on the load control. A three-stage SMPS converter is proposed and analyzed. The fuel cell operation and the types of fuel cells are also described. An experimental setup was made using a toy vehicle powered by a fuel cell in order to experimentally prove the theoretical approaches of load control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mechatronics consists in integration of three fields in engineering: mechanics, electronics and information technology. The paradigm of mechatronics is integration. The paper presents details regarding the integration-process and the integrated design of positioning systems in mechatronics. The example of the positioning system based on dc motor and screw-nut transmission is analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some applications of a Model Based Predictive Control (MBPC) type algorithm which is applied to nonlinear processes. The basic idea of the algorithm is the on-line simulation of the future behaviour of the control system, by using a few candidate control sequences. Then, using rule based control these simulations are used to obtain the 'optimal' control signal. The efficiency and applicability of the proposed algorithm are demonstrated through applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]