  A fuel cell system must output a steady voltage as a power source in
practical use. A neural network (NN) based model predictive control (MPC)
approach is developed in this work to regulate the fuel cell output voltage
with safety constraints. The developed NN MPC controller stabilizes the polymer
electrolyte fuel cell system's output voltage by controlling the hydrogen and
air flow rates at the same time. The safety constraints regarding the hydrogen
pressure limit and input change rate limit are considered. The neural network
model is built to describe the system voltage and hydrogen pressure behavior.
Simulation results show that the NN MPC can control the voltage at the desired
value while satisfying the safety constraints under workload disturbance. The
NN MPC shows a comparable performance of the MPC based on the detailed
underlying system physical model.
