  The combination of a fuel cell and batteries has promising potential for
powering autonomous vehicles. The MUN Explorer Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
(AUV) is built to do mapping-type missions of seabeds as well as survey
missions. These missions require a great deal of power to reach underwater
depths (i.e. 3000 meters). The MUN Explorer uses 11 rechargeable Lithium-ion
(Li-ion) batteries as the main power source with a total capacity of 14.6kWh to
17.952kWh, and the vehicle can run for 10 hours. The draw-backs of operating
the existing power system of the MUN Explorer, which was done by the researcher
at the Holyrood management facility, include mobilization costs, logistics and
transport, and facility access, all of which should be taken into
consideration. Recharging the batteries for at least 8 hours is also very
challenging and time consuming. To overcome these challenges and run the MUN
Explorer for a long time, it is essential to integrate a fuel cell into an
existing power system (i.e. battery bank). The integration of the fuel cell not
only will increase the system power, but it will also reduce the number of
batteries needed as suggested by HOMER software. In this paper, an integrated
fuel cell is designed to be added into the MUN Explorer AUV along with a
battery bank system to increase its power system. The system sizing is
performed using HOMER software. The results from HOMER software show that a 1kW
fuel cell and 8 Li-ion batteries can increase the power system capacity to 68
kWh. The dynamic model is then built in MATLAB/Simulink environment to provide
a better understanding of the system behavior.The 1kW fuel cell is connected to
a DC/DC Boost Converter to increase the output voltage from 24V to 48V as
required by the battery and DC motor.
