Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) techniques for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) systems are of great importance for increasing their reliability and sustainability. PEMFC systems suffer from relatively poor longterm performance and durability, and prediction and prognosis can give early indications about when components should be fixed or replaced. Prognostics modelling needs to take account of a number of phenomena, including degradation mechanisms that are not easily measured. A number of works are currently investigating PHM in fuel cell systems, as well as the problem of estimating Remaining Useful Lifetime (RUL). Any reduction in the volume of data required for making predictions is clearly advantageous. In this work, a univariate prognostic approach based on signal processing, namely Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is proposed. The proposed approach aims at achieving an online prognostic for PEMFC systems. DWT is first introduced, and then the predictions are built using the power signals of two different PEMFC stacks in two different scenarios, namely static and dynamic operating conditions. Results show that the method is reliable for online prediction of power, with prediction errors less than 3%.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.