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This paper proposes a technological solution with a scroll compressor driven by a high-performance induction machine drive for the air management of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) for automotive applications. The torque--speed characteristics of a real scroll compressor have been measured and then emulated by a brushless internal mounted permanent magnets machine controlled in torque. This emulated scroll compressor has been driven by a field-oriented controlled induction motor drive. The whole car model as well as the PEMFC have been implemented by software on the same DSP which implements the drive control algorithm; in this way, the hardware-in-the-loop structure has been employed for emulating the behavior of a real car including the electrical supply of the PEMFC. The whole system has been tested with a classic European Driving Cycle. Two experimental rigs have been setup, one for characterizing the scroll compressor and the other for emulating the entire vehicle. The experimental results have shown that the speed reference profile, obtained during a urban driving cycle, is followed correctly, and that the tank-to-wheel efficiency remains at quite high values confirming the goodness of the proposed technological solution. The hardware-in-the-loop approach of the experimental rig allows tests to be performed to verify the operation in steady and transient states with low cost and reduced employment of the fuel cell stack, with resulting increased durability. Index Terms--Automotive applications, compressors for fuel cells, fuel cell air management, high-performance motor drives.

This paper presents a hardware-in-the-loop experimental rig for testing a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) driving an electrical vehicle. The PEMFC includes an air-management system with a scroll compressor driven by a high-performance sensorless induction motor drive. The sensorless technique is based on a neural-network-based speed observer, i.e., the total least-squares EXIN full-order observer. The whole system is driven by a classic European Driving Cycle (EEC Directive 90/C81/01). An experimental rig has been built to test the system. The torque--speed characteristics of a real scroll compressor have first been measured. Then, these characteristics have been emulated by a brushless interior-mounted permanent-magnet machine controlled in torque. This emulated scroll compressor has been driven by a sensorless field-oriented controlled induction motor drive. The experimental results show that the system attains a global efficiency of about 50% and that the speed estimation accuracy is high at both very low and very high speeds with a stable behavior at zero speed at no load, which is particularly difficult to achieve for model-based sensorless techniques. Index Terms--Automotive applications, compressors for fuel cells, fuel cell air management, high-performance motor drives, neural networks.

Component hybrid dynamic nets (CHDNs) are a graphic model for hybrid dynamic systems, which allow every component of the hybrid system to be individually represented. On the basis of this methodology, a software tool dedicated to electrical engineering simulations has been developed. Thus, the aim of this paper is to present a brief review of the model structure and to describe the developed software called SimRDH. In order to show the applications of this software tool, a hydraulic system, a mechanical system, and finally, an elevator system powered by supercapacitors have been studied. Index Terms--Component hybrid dynamic nets (CHDNs), elevator, power converter, supercapacitors, synchronous motor.