Abstract This paper presents a comparative study related to the impacts of the operating parameters. A structural design and modeling approach of the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEMFC) fuel cell is presented. The purpose of this study is to review many control and clarification strategies for fuel cell components that have been conducted by several researchers for improving the performance. The models that have been studied and compared to literature models appear clearly the dynamics of the PEM fuel cell. Consequently, the fuel cell performance is related to several parameters, which are ( δ , D H 2 , D O 2 , I 0 , I lim , r ). A simulation by MATLAB software is used to highlighting the powerful model compared to the mentioned models. The simulation results showed that many parameters change under different operating conditions such as, pressure, temperature and humidity. Finally, an accurate study shown that model 02 is the best model with an R2 value of 0.9994. This model has demonstrated a close agreement with the experimental data provided by a real fuel cell in the literature.