Remaining Useful Life Prediction for Fuel Cell Based on Support Vector Regression and Grey Wolf Optimizer Algorithm

Remaining useful life prediction is an important way to improve the durability and reduce the cost of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell. This paper presents a novel method to predict the remaining useful life of proton exchange membrane fuel cell under different load currents based on support vector regression and grey wolf optimizer algorithm. The proposed method considers the influence of 17 operating conditions and historical voltage. Firstly, the measured data are reconstructed through robust locally weighted smoothing method to reduce the calculation amount and filter disturbances. Then, support vector regression with fewer hyperparameters is used to establish the degradation model. Finally, the hyperparameters of support vector regression are optimized through grey wolf optimizer algorithm to improve the accuracy of degradation prediction. The proposed method is validated by two degradation experiments under different load currents. The test results show that grey wolf optimizer algorithm can effectively improve the accuracy of degradation prediction based on support vector regression. Compared with other methods, the proposed method has the highest accuracy. The proposed method can predict the fuel cell degradation with a mean absolute percentage error of less than 0.3%. The proposed method can predict the remaining useful life of 492 hours.