System Design and Energy Management for a Fuel Cell/Battery Hybrid Forklift

Abstract

Electric forklifts, dominantly powered by lead acid batteries, are widely used for material handling in factories, warehouses, and docks. The long charging time and short working time characteristics of the lead acid battery module results in the necessity of several battery modules to support one forklift. Compared with the cost and time consuming lead acid battery charging system, a fuel cell/battery hybrid power module could be more convenient for a forklift with fast hydrogen refueling and long working time. In this paper, based on the characteristics of a fuel cell and a battery, a prototype hybrid forklift with a fuel cell/battery hybrid power system is constructed, and its hardware and software are designed in detail. According to the power demand of driver cycles and the state of charge (SOC) of battery, an energy management strategy based on load current following for the hybrid forklift is proposed to improve system energy efficiency and dynamic response performance. The proposed energy management strategy will fulfill the power requirements under typical driving cycles, achieve reasonable power distribution between the fuel cell and battery and, thus, prolong its continuous working time. The proposed energy management strategy is implemented in the hybrid forklift prototype and its effectiveness is tested under different operating conditions. The results show that the forklift with the proposed hybrid powered strategy has good performance with different loads, both lifting and moving, in a smooth and steady way, and the output of the fuel cell meets the requirements of its output characteristics, its SOC of battery remaining at a reasonable level.

Hydraulic Pressure-Flow Rate Control of a Pallet Handling Robot for an Autonomous Freight Delivery Vehicle

“…This is very helpful in our vehicle as reducing power consumption is one of the goals of our research. Upgrading the energy management for forklifts has also been studied and verified in experimental settings [18]. Our research also uses the same experimental validation technique for our forklift operations to verify our simulation results.…”

Experimental Analysis of the Performances of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Based Electric Vehicle

“…Nowadays, the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell is used in Electric Vehicle (EV) and hybrid cars to convert hydrogen into electrical energy [11][12][13][14]. The system has good efficiency and makes the EV very interesting transportation technology [15][16][17][18][19].…”

Multiobjective Optimal Predictive Energy Management for Fuel Cell/Battery Hybrid Construction Vehicles

“…Fuel cell-powered construction vehicle implementation is still far from that required for large-scale commercialisation. Crown, Plug Power, and Raymond have developed pure fuel cellpowered forklifts, obtaining somewhere in the performance evaluation of hydrogen fuel cell forklifts, fuel reloading time, and forklift design [15], [16]. However, the future prospects for FCHCVs are promising, as the technologies and markets for fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) mature.…”