Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Tomohiko Kaneko

Masayuki Ito

Yutaka Tano

Yohei Okamoto

Mitsuhiro Nada

Yoshiaki Naganuma

Hideyuki Kumei

Takahiro Umehara

Kota Manabe

Nobuyuki Kitamura

Masayuki Itou

Tomohiro Ogawa

Kazuo Yamamoto

Hiroyuki Imanishi

Masashi Toida

Tomohiro Shinagawa

Yasushi Araki

Takahiko Hasegawa

Hiroki Okabe

Tomio Yamanaka

Khalid Hassan Hussein

Ryosuke Oya

Shinji Hatae

Yoshihiro Shinozaki

Masato Nonaka

Masaharu Kimura

Hikaru Arai

Daiki Yaginuma

Keidai Minami

To provide a fuel cell system configured to appropriately measure the AC impedance of a fuel cell. A fuel cell system wherein a controller controls ON and OFF of switches of n phases; wherein the controller monitors current values of coils; the controller operates the switches of the n phases at different phases; wherein the controller operates duty ratios of the switches of the n phases with periodically increasing and decreasing them, and the controller measures an AC impedance of a fuel cell from a current waveform of and a voltage waveform of the fuel cell; and wherein, when the controller determines that a predetermined condition 1 is met, the controller makes amplitudes which increase and decrease the duty ratios large compared to other operating conditions.

Fuel cell system

To provide an air vehicle configured to stabilize the power output of a fuel cell by securing the generated water discharge property of the fuel cell. An air vehicle, wherein the air vehicle comprises two or more fuel cells; wherein each fuel cell comprises an anode outlet manifold; and wherein each fuel cell is disposed in the air vehicle so that water discharge directions of the anode outlet manifolds are different from each other.

Air vehicle

A power supply unit includes a power supply and a converter. The converter performs operation selected from the group consisting of boosting and stepping down of an output voltage of the power supply; and includes a reactor in which n-phase coils are magnetically coupled to each other, n-phase switches, and a control unit. The control unit controls duty cycles of the n-phase switches; monitors a current value flowing through the n-phase coils; and performs phase switching control when the control unit determines that an operation condition described below is satisfied, the phase switching control being control in which the control unit performs phase switching from in phase to out of phase in the case where the n-phase switches are being driven in phase and performs phase switching from out of phase to in phase in the case where the n-phase switches are being driven out of phase.

Power supply unit capable of reducing possibility of overcurrent and current shortage

To provide a power supply unit configured to determine the boundary between the operation modes (continuous mode and discontinuous mode) of a converter with high accuracy. The power supply unit is a power supply unit wherein the controller controls a value of output current of the power supply by controlling a duty ratio by switching the second switch; wherein the controller detects the current value of the reactor acquired by the current sensor, at a frequency of at least n (n is an integer of 2 or more) times in a cycle of the switching.

Power supply unit with current control

To provide a fuel cell system configured to appropriately measure the AC impedance of a fuel cell. A fuel cell system wherein the controller controls ON and OFF of the switches of n phases; wherein the controller operates the switches of the n phases at different phases, and the controller operates the switches of the n phases at the same duty ratio; wherein the controller operates the switches of the n phases at different duty ratios, when the controller determines that a specific condition is met; and wherein the controller measures the AC impedance of the fuel cell from the current waveform and voltage waveform of the fuel cell.

To provide a power conversion device configured to evenly pass current through phases and to achieve high power conversion efficiency in a wide current range. A power conversion device comprising conversion parts which are coupled in parallel to each other, which are capable of voltage conversion, and each of which includes a coil, wherein the power conversion device comprises M (M is a natural number of 2 or more) sets of conversion sets including the conversion parts of N phases (N is a natural number of 2 or more), and the coils of the conversion parts are capable of magnetic coupling to each other; wherein the power conversion device includes a controller configured to change a driving phase number X of the conversion parts according to a system requirement.

Power conversion device

A control device for a converter including a one-phase or multiple-phase converter circuit includes: a magnetic coupling determination unit configured to determine whether the converter circuit is a magnetically coupled circuit in which a reactor of the converter circuit is in a magnetically coupled state; and a control unit configured to change a control method for the converter according to a determination result of the magnetic coupling determination unit.

Control device and control method

A control device of a power supply system includes a processor configured to set a sampling period, at which measurement values of a reactor current flowing through a reactor of a DC-DC converter and measured by an ammeter are sampled, so as to minimize a sum of differences between the length of a first period in a switching cycle of a switching element of the DC-DC converter and an integer multiple of the sampling period and between the length of a second period in the switching cycle and an integer multiple of the sampling period, the reactor current increasing during the first period and decreasing during the second period; sample, at intervals of the sampling period, measurement values of the reactor current measured by the ammeter; and average measurement values sampled in the switching cycle, thereby measuring an average of the reactor current in the switching cycle.

Power supply system, control device, and method for measuring reactor current

A control device for a multi-phase converter including converter circuits of m phases of which each includes a switching element includes: a driven phase number control unit configured to control the multi-phase converter in n-phase driving or m-phase driving; a storage unit configured to store first and second patterns; a selection unit configured to select the first or second pattern while the multi-phase converter is stopped, an on/off control unit configured to perform on/off control on the switching elements of the number of driven phases; and a prediction unit configured to predict a predicted correlation value which is correlated with a time ratio which is a ratio of a time in which control in the m-phase driving is predicted to be performed to a time in which control in the n-phase driving is predicted to be performed in a predetermined time.

Control device for multi-phase converter, multi-phase converter system, and power supply system

A fuel cell system includes a first fuel cell stack having a discharge manifold, a second fuel cell stack having a discharge manifold, a first auxiliary machine used for power generation of the first fuel cell stack, a second auxiliary machine used for power generation of the second fuel cell stack, and a controller configured to control operation of the first auxiliary machine and the second auxiliary machine. The controller is configured to control operation of the first auxiliary machine and the second auxiliary machine, such that one of the first fuel cell stack and the second fuel cell stack, of which a discharge direction of reaction gas discharged from the discharge manifold forms a smaller angle with a vertical downward direction, starts generating power earlier than the other fuel cell stack, after power generation of the first fuel cell stack and the second fuel cell stack is stopped.

A controller of a power supply system includes a memory configured to store a self-inductance and a mutual inductance of two reactors included in a boost converter; and a processor configured to determine a present operating state of the boost converter, based on a ratio of an input voltage into the boost converter to an output voltage therefrom, a duty ratio applied to switching elements of the boost converter, the self-inductance, and the mutual inductance, the present operating state being one of operating states among which the waveform of a reactor current differs; and measure an average of the reactor current in a predetermined switching period of the switching elements, based on the input voltage, the output voltage, and the duty ratio, in accordance with the waveform of the reactor current corresponding to the present operating state of the boost converter.

A fuel cell module has: a first stacked body including a plurality of unit cells stacked on each other; and a second stacked body including a plurality of magnetic body sheets stacked on each other. The magnetic body sheets includes a coil. The first stacked body is superposed on the second stacked body so as to be electrically connected to the coil. A conductor serving as a part of the coil is embedded in each magnetic body sheet. The conductor has a first end portion and a second end portion exposed from surfaces of each magnetic body sheet on opposite sides from each other. The first end portion of the conductor of one of a set of magnetic body sheets adjacent to each other, among the magnetic body sheets, contacts the second end portion of the conductor of the other of the set of magnetic body sheets.

Fuel cell module

A control device of a multi-phase converter having N converter circuits connected in parallel includes: a determination unit configured to determine each share ratio of the N converter circuits to unevenly share input current to the multi-phase converter among the N converter circuits such that a conversion efficiency indicating a ratio of output power from the multi-phase converter with respect to input power to the multi-phase converter is higher in the case where the input current is unevenly shared by the N converter circuits compared to the case where the input current is evenly shared by the N converter circuits when the number of driven converter circuits is one or more and N&#x2212;1 or less and the start condition is satisfied; and a diagnosis unit configured to diagnose an abnormality of the N converter circuits when the N converter circuits are driven in accordance with the determined share ratios.

Control device of multi-phase converter and power supply system

A fuel cell system includes: a fuel cell unit; first and second supply systems; a switching device; a switching control unit, when required power of the fuel cell unit is equal to or smaller than a threshold; an open circuit voltage obtaining unit; and a supply system control unit.

A fuel cell system is equipped with a fuel cell unit that is composed of a plurality of fuel cells including a first fuel cell and a second fuel cell, a first supply device and a second supply device that supply reactive gas to the first fuel cell and the second fuel cell respectively, and a control device that controls running of the first fuel cell and the second fuel cell and operation of the first supply device and the second supply device. The control device suspends electric power generation by the first fuel cell and drives the first supply device to hold an opening circuit voltage of the first fuel cell within a target range, and suspends electric power generation by the second fuel cell and stops driving the second supply device when an output P required of the fuel cell unit is equal to 0.

Growing community of inventors

Okazaki, Japan

Tomohiko Kaneko