Micro-direct-methanol fuel cells (μDMFCs) use micro-electro mechanical system (MEMS) technology, which offers high energy density, portable use, quick replenishment, and free fuel reforming and purification. However, the μDMFC is limited by a short effective service life due to the membrane electrode's deterioration in electrochemical reactions. This paper presents a health status assessment and remaining useful life (RUL) prediction approach for μDMFC under dynamic operating conditions. Rather than making external observations, an internal characterization is used to describe the degradation indicator and to overcome intrusive influences in operation. Then, a Markov-process-based usage behavior prediction mechanism is proposed to account for the randomness of real-world operation. The experimental results show that the proposed degradation indicator alleviates the reduction in μDMFC output power degradation behavior caused by the user loading profile. Compared with the predictions of RUL using traditional external observation, the proposed approach achieved superior prognostic performance in both accuracy and precision.
Keywords: internal characterization; micro-direct-methanol fuel cell; operating conditions; prognostics; remaining useful life.