Patent ID: 7691503

Claim:
A fuel cell system comprising: an integration plane adapted to receive a plurality of differing types of technology modules, comprising, a bidirectional fluid bus; an electrical bus; a plurality of module bays each adapted to receive a said technology module, each said module bay comprising: a bidirectional fluid interface coupled to the bidirectional fluid bus; an electrical interface coupled to the electrical bus; and wherein: the bidirectional fluid interface of each module bay of the plurality of module bays has the same bidirectional interface, and the electrical interface of each module bay of the plurality of module bays has the same electrical interface; a hydrogen fuel cell stack, coupled to the bidirectional fluid bus of the integration plane, to generate unconditioned electrical power using hydrogen; a power management unit, electrically coupled to the hydrogen fuel cell stack, to generate conditioned electrical power using the unconditioned electrical power generated by the hydrogen fuel cell stack and to output the conditioned electrical power to a power management interface; and circuitry electrically coupled to at least one of (i) the integration plane, (ii) the hydrogen fuel cell stack and (iii) the power management unit, to monitor and/or control at least one of (i) the integration plane, (ii) the hydrogen fuel cell stack, and (iii) the power management unit.