Method to measure and communicate cell voltage in a fuel cell stack by embedding measurement units on the plate

A system for communicating measurement data from fuel cells in a fuel cell stack, said system comprising:

• a plurality of fuel cells;
• a plurality of stack plates including one stack plate between each fuel cell and on each end of the stack;
• a plurality of embedded smart plates, each embedded smart plate being mechanically and electrically coupled to at least one of the plurality of stack plates in the fuel cell stack, each embedded smart plate including optical transceivers on the top side and the bottom side of the embedded smart plate;
• and
• first and second aggregator devices, said first and second aggregator devices including at least one optical transceiver for communicating with the embedded smart plate adjacent to the first or second aggregator device, wherein one aggregator device initiates communication with the embedded smart plates and the other aggregator device completes communication.

A system for communicating measurement data from fuel cells in a fuel cell stack, said system comprising:

• a plurality of fuel cells;
• a plurality of stack plates, including one stack plate between each fuel cell and on each end of the stack;
• a plurality of embedded smart plates, each embedded smart plate being mechanically and electrically coupled to at least one of the plurality of stack plates, each embedded smart plate including an embedded smart plate printed circuit board and optical transceivers on the top side and the bottom side of each smart plate;
• a first aggregator device located at one end of the plurality of embedded smart plates in the stack, and a second aggregator device at the other end of the plurality of embedded smart plates in the stack, said embedded smart plates and first and second aggregator devices arranged in a columnar arrangement and said first and second aggregator devices including at least one optical transceiver for communicating with the embedded smart plate adjacent to the first or second aggregator device;
• and
• a controller configured to control the first aggregator device, wherein the controller requests that the first aggregator device communicate with the adjacent embedded smart plate such that the embedded smart plates communicate in series through the stack until the second aggregator device completes communication after receiving the communication from the last embedded smart plate in the stack.