This thesis focuses on the development of a fuel cell-based hybrid electric powertrain for smaller (2 kW) hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). A Hardware-in-the-Loop test rig is designed and built with the possibility to simulate any load profile for HEVs in a realistic environment, whereby the environment is modeled. Detailed simulation models of the test rig are developed and validated to real physical components and control algorithms are designed for the DC/DC-converters and the fuel cell system. A state-feedback controller is developed for the DC/DC-converters where the state-space averaging method is used for the development. For the fuel cells, a gain-scheduling controller based on state feedback is developed and compared to two conventional methods. The design process of an HEV with regard to a given load profile is introduced with comparison between SuperCaps and batteries. The HEV is also evaluated with an introduction to different powermanagement concepts with regard to fuel consumption, dynamics, and fuel cell deterioration rate. The powermanagement methods are implemented in the test rig and compared.