Fuel cell (FC) and ultracapacitor (UC) based hybrid power systems appear to be very promising for satisfying high energy and high power requirements of vehicular applications. The improvement in control strategies enhances dynamic response of the FC/UC hybrid vehicular power system under various load conditions. In this study, FC system and UC bank supply power demand using a current-fed full bridge dc-dc converter and a bidirectional dc-dc converter, respectively. We focus on a novel fuzzy logic control algorithm integrated into the power conditioning unit (PCU) for the hybrid system. The control strategy is capable of determining the desired FC power and keeps the dc voltage around its nominal value by supplying propulsion power and recuperating braking energy. Simulation results obtained using MATLAB (R) & Simulink (R) and ADVISOR (R) are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm. (C) 2008 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.