An air breathing proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) combines H 2 or reformed hydrocarbon fuel and O 2 from air to produce electrical energy. The efficiency of nano-scale platinum catalysts at the fuel cell cathode is highly susceptible to carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and results in irreversible damage to the electrode. Higher CO 2 level in air does not induce catalytic poisoning , however it lowers the partial pressure of O 2 at cathode . This results in a drop of fuel cell output power. Our work proposes a combined range sensing and proximate sensing based approach for tracking of smoke plume. Our approach helps to tackle the PEMFC degradation issue by forecasting nature of the plume in vicinity of the fuel cell. The simulation results quantify the dynamic changes in PEMFC electrode resistance with respect to higher levels of CO concentration in air. Drop in fuel cell output power with respect to higher mass fractions of CO 2 and ambient humidity are also quantified in this work. The proposed threat prediction based approach helps to enhance the lifetime of a field deployed air PEMFC by reducing and/or inhibiting the air contaminant based fuel cell degradation mechanisms. Keywords-component; air breathing field deployed PEMFC, range and proximate sensing, plume tracking, enhancing FC life I. INTRODUCTIONA fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity with water and heat as the bye product. Hydrogen is the most commonly used fuel, but other hydrocarbons such as methanol, ethanol, CNG, and propane may be also used as fuels. Production of high energy density at comparatively low temperature, high systems efficiency (80%), and pollutant free quieter operation are the salient features of fuel cell technology. For these reasons, fuel cell technology is uniquely suited for use in a wide variety of stationary, vehicular, and portable energy and power applications. Today, demonstration projects have shown fuel cell systems to be feasible for portable power, transportation (including personal vehicles), utility power, and on-site power generation in a variety of building applications. Most of the major automobile manufacturers now have ambitious programs to develop proton exchange membrane fuel cells as an alternative to the internal combustion engines. Apart from resident applications, many different types of fuel cell systems have been demonstrated for uses in hospitals, boiler plants, surveillance and military purposes, telecommunication facilities, power microgrid etc [1][2][3][4][5][6][7].

This book chapter proposes a system based on the WirelessHART standard for monitoring and controlling oil platforms using sensor networks. The authors propose a hierarchical distributed system where sensor nodes and process components are grouped both functionally and in terms of proximity (i.e., spatially). They harness the existing electrical powering supplies to some of the process components to enhance our network routing protocol. They also propose a component based addressing scheme. Then propose a hybrid routing protocol having proactive paths for high priority data and reactive paths for low priority that can help in load balancing and thus improving the lifetime of the sensor network. Finally, the authors discuss about methodologies for assessing the health (residual energy) of the sensor network system. Related research is discussed at appropriate points.

Authentication and trust management in an adhoc network is a challenging task. Cryptography and other hard approaches do not provide a quantitative measurement of trust. Also, trust assignment to a new node having no history of any previous transaction had not been concrete. Human society authenticates people dynamically. This paper proposes a new strategy involving two parameters a and ,B, which authenticates a node in a mobile adhoc network drawing inspiration from the way authentication, is done in a human society. The alpha parameter gives the quantitative measurement of seeking trust, and the beta parameter gives the quantitative measurement of assigning trust. The dynamism of trust change in a cluster of nodes is also explained by introducing time credit point, service credit point and discredit point. The strategy proposes to use a downloadable active security component from the trust authentication authority, rather than any passive certificate or encryption based authentication. This paper also says how to choose next trust authority in case the primary authority fails.

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