Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Tetsuya Bono

Masahiro Okuyoshi

Satoshi Shiokawa

Osamu Hamanoi

Toshihiro Egawa

Yasuhiro Osada

Kenji Umayahara

Hiroyuki Imanishi

Naohiro Yoshida

Takashi Yamada

Shigeto Kajiwara

Masahiro Takeshita

Hiroaki Mori

Kenji Kurita

Sadao Takaki

Kaori Oya

A fuel cell system configured to supply electric power to load includes: a fuel cell; and a control unit configured to set target electric power to be generated by the fuel cell and control electric power generation by the fuel cell such that the fuel cell generates the target electric power. The control unit is configured to, when setting the target electric power using request electric power that the load requests the fuel cell to generate, execute a fluctuation suppression process for making a fluctuation of the target electric power smaller than a fluctuation of the request electric power.

Fuel cell system

The power controller starts imposing the current limit when a condition for the current limit is met the condition, the condition being that the fuel cell does not generate to fulfill the requested amount of power generation while the fuel cell generates power at an upper limit of the supply capability of the fuel gas supply unit, and the power controller removes the current limit at a first predetermined increase rate determined when the requested amount of power generation exceeds a predetermined threshold below a rated power generation amount of the fuel cell and at a second increase rate higher than the first increase rate when the requested amount of power generation is the threshold or less, after the condition for the limit is dissolved.

Fuel cell system and method of controlling fuel cell system

A plant control system is equipped with a plant, an actuator that controls a state of the plant based on a command value, and an arithmetic device that calculates the command value through the use of state information indicating the state of the plant and that outputs the command value to the actuator. The arithmetic device adopts, as the command value, a value of u obtained by deleting a time differential of y from equations: dy/dt=f(y, u, d, t) and K&#xd7;dy/dt=K&#xd7;y&#x2212;K&#xd7;y+K&#xd7;(time integral of (y&#x2212;y))+K.

Plant control system, plant control method, and non-transitory computer-readable medium

Provided is a fuel cell system including: a fuel cell; an anode gas supply device; a pressure sensor; a discharge valve; an estimation unit that estimates an anode gas concentration; and a control unit. The control unit performs first control of opening the discharge valve when a first valve opening condition is established in which the estimated anode gas concentration is equal to or lower than a first concentration, and closing the discharge valve when a first valve closing condition is established in which the estimated anode gas concentration is equal to or higher than a second concentration higher than the first concentration, and performs second control of closing the discharge valve when a deviation between the target pressure value and a value of the pressure sensor is continuously equal to or larger than a predetermined threshold for a predetermined period, and opening the discharge value when a second valve opening condition is established in which the estimated anode gas concentration is equal to or lower than a third concentration lower than the first concentration, or in which a value obtained by multiplying the estimated anode gas concentration by a predetermined coefficient so that the anode gas concentration is estimated to be high is equal to or lower than the first concentration.

Fuel cell system and control method of fuel cell system

A control device includes a target value acquisition portion configured to acquire a target value of amount of control per predetermined computation cycle, a control portion configured to control the control target using the acquired target value, a target smoothing value calculation portion configured to calculate a target smoothing value in which a temporal change in the target value is slowed down, and a state determination portion configured to calculate a first difference that is a difference between the target value and the target smoothing value to determine that the amount of control is in a transient state when the calculated first difference is equal to or more than a predetermined first threshold value and to determine that the amount of control is in a non-transient state when the first difference is smaller than the first threshold value.

Control device, control method, and non-transitory computer readable medium for fuel cell system

A fuel cell system determines whether or not the injector is failed using a determination result, the determination result showing whether or not a fluctuation range determined for power consumed by a hydrogen pump is a predetermined value or less, the fluctuation range being generated by opening and closing of the injector.

Fuel cell system and determination method including injector failure determination based on circulation hydrogen pump power consumption

A device for monitoring electricity generation comprising: an acquirer that acquires a total value of cell voltage from multiple cells including fuel cells; an increaser that increases the anode gas now rate to the multiple cells when the total value shows a possibility of negative voltage occurring in some of the multiple cells; and a judger that judges if negative voltage occurred in some of the multiple cells based on the total value following the increase of the anode gas flow rate.

Device for monitoring electricity generation and method for monitoring electricity generation

A flow control valvecan adjust the percentage of the flow rate of cooling water to a radiatorto a predetermined value (50%) or smaller. When the temperature of the cooling water in a fuel cellis determined to be a predetermined temperature (0&#xb0; C.) or higher after the cooling water is supplied to the fuel cellwith the percentage of the flow rate of the cooling water to the radiatorset to the predetermined value (50%) or larger, a controllerperforms a predetermined percentage supply operation for controlling the flow control valveand a pumpto supply the cooling water to the fuel cellwith the percentage of the flow rate of the cooling water to the radiatorset to the predetermined value (50%) or larger.

A fuel cell system, comprising: a measurer that measures an impedance of the fuel cell; a controller that controls an operation state of the fuel cell; and an acquirer that acquires a dryness degree of the fuel cell from the measured impedance when the operation state is a first operation state, and acquires the dryness degree of the fuel cell as a wet state when the operation state is a second operation state in which a water balance is more than the first operation state.

Fuel cell system and dryness degree acquisition method

A fuel cell system comprising: an acquirer that acquires a total value of cell voltages of two or more cells included in a fuel cell; and a determiner that determines, when the total value is a first voltage value, abnormal power generation in which power generation by at least a part of the two or more cells is abnormal, that determines, when the total value is a second voltage value higher than the first voltage value, normal power generation in which power generation by the two or more cells is normal and that determines, when the total value is a third voltage value higher than the first voltage value but lower than the second voltage value, the normal power generation if a cathode gas is deficient or the abnormal power generation if the cathode gas is not deficient.

Fuel cell system and power generation monitoring method

A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell including an electrolyte membrane, a sensor configured to measure a temperature of the fuel cell, and a controller. The controller is configured to cause the fuel cell to perform a wet operation to increase a water balance at a cathode of the fuel cell to a value higher than a water balance at the cathode during a normal operation of the fuel cell, when the temperature of the fuel cell measured by the sensor is maintained at a first threshold temperature or higher for a prescribed period of time or longer and then the temperature of the fuel cell decreases to below a second threshold temperature that is equal to or lower than the first threshold temperature.

Fuel cell system and method of controlling operation of fuel cell

The present invention provides a system for a fuel cell vehicle, capable of preventing an unnecessary error in calculating high potential avoidance power to calculate power for high potential avoidance with high accuracy. A fuel cell systemincludes: a fuel cellthat receives the supply of reactant gas to generate power; a secondary batteryfor storing part of the power generated by the fuel cell; calculation meanswhich, when surplus power for high potential avoidance is added to the output voltage of the fuel cellto avoid a high potential, calculates high potential avoidance voltage to avoid the high potential by feedback control based on a deviation between power generation voltage of the fuel celland high potential avoidance target voltage; determination meansfor determining whether the operating state of the fuel cellcorresponds to a prohibition condition A to prohibit updating of an integral term of the feedback control or a permission condition; and feedback control condition deciding meansfor stopping the updating of the integral term when the operating state corresponds to the prohibition condition A or updating the integral term when the operating state corresponds to the permission condition.

Fuel cell system and operating method of fuel cell system

The fuel cell system includes: a fuel cellthat receives supply of reactant gas to generate power; output characteristic updating means for updating an output characteristic of the fuel cellbased on output current and output voltage measured by a current sensorand a voltage sensor; maximum power calculation means for calculating, using the output characteristic, the maximum power available at the fuel cell; and determination means for determining whether a value of the output characteristic is in an assumed situation where the output characteristic value is assumed to be temporarily lowered, wherein while the output characteristic value is determined by the determination means to be in the assumed situation, the maximum power calculation means calculates the maximum power using the output characteristic updated by the output characteristic updating means just before transition to the assumed situation.

Fuel cell system and maximum power calculation method

Even when the atmospheric pressure is lowered, a sufficient amount of oxidant gas is supplied to a fuel cell without causing any failure in a compressor. A control unit judges whether or not both the following conditions are satisfied: the accelerator opening degree detected by an accelerator opening degree sensor is equal to or larger than a predetermined opening degree; and the state where the atmospheric pressure detected by a pressure sensor is equal to or lower than a predetermined pressure value has been maintained for a predetermined time period or longer. If the judgment result is positive, the control unit changes the maximum rotation speed permitted in the compressor from a normal maximum rotation speed to an increased maximum rotation speed. The control unit then judges whether or not a predetermined time period has elapsed from when the maximum rotation speed was changed to the increased maximum rotation speed, and also judges whether or not the state where a discharge temperature of the compressor detected by the temperature sensor is equal to or higher than a predetermined temperature has been maintained for a predetermined time or longer. If the result of at least one of these judgments is positive, the control unit returns the maximum rotation speed to the normal maximum rotation speed.

Fuel cell system and method of controlling rotation speed of compressor

In a fuel cell system, it is possible to suppress fixation of a fluid circulating device arranged in a fluid passage connected to a fuel cell main body. The fuel cell system is provided with a fuel cell stack, a system main body having respective elements for supplying a fuel gas and respective elements for supplying an oxidizing gas, and a control device. The control device includes a fluid circulating device drive processing unit having a function to forcibly drive the fluid circulating device after determining, based on a judgment related to one or more of a non-use time, an operation state of the system main body, a membrane impedance state of a fuel cell, a temperature of the fuel cell stack, and a background noise, whether or not forced driving to suppress sticking of the fluid circulating device is preferable at that time.

Growing community of inventors

Miyoshi, Japan

Tetsuya Bono