System integration and intelligent management of hydrogen fuel cells based on digital twin technology: research progress and future challenges

With the greenhouse effect and other environmental problems becoming more and more prominent, the problem of fossil resources is becoming more and more obvious, and the search for alternative green energy is the general trend. Therefore, fuel cell is the future development trend, the development of fuel cell is very promising work, in which hydrogen fuel cell due to its high efficiency, cleanliness, pollution-free characteristics gradually received attention and ushered in the development opportunities. At the same time, with the development of Internet technology, big data, cloud computing and the Internet of Things and other emerging technologies have ushered in the vigorous development of digital twin industrial technology has been widely used. By constructing a digital twin model of hydrogen fuel cell, real-time monitoring and dynamic analysis of the battery operation state can be realized, and the degradation trend and potential failure of the battery can be effectively predicted, so that maintenance measures can be taken in advance to extend the battery life. In addition, digital twin technology also provides an efficient simulation platform for battery design, which helps to optimize battery performance and reduce the research and development cost. In this paper, a brief overview of the fuel cell structure, principles and key technologies of digital twin technology is given, and statistics on the application of hydrogen fuel cells in new energy vehicles in recent years are presented. Then it analyzes the feasibility of applying digital twins to the six systems of fuel cells, and discusses the potential and practical applications of digital twin technology in thermal management, water management, gas management, fault diagnosis, fault prediction, remaining service life prediction, health state estimation, and system optimization. Meanwhile, the current research on digital twins over hydrogen fuel cells is summarized, and an advanced fuel cell management system based on digital twins is proposed, aiming to provide a reference meaning for the subsequent digitization work on hydrogen fuel cells.