Abstract
•CS algorithm is proposed for tuning the parameters of PI controllers for LFC problem.•A three area power system is considered to demonstrate the proposed method.•The design problem of LFC is formulated as an optimization problem.•The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is confirmed compared with others.
A new optimization technique called Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm for optimum tuning of PI controllers for Load Frequency Control (LFC) is suggested in this paper. A time domain based-objective function is established to robustly tune the parameters of PI-based LFC which is solved by the CS algorithm to attain the most optimistic results. A three-area interconnected system is investigated as a test system under various loading conditions where system nonlinearities are taken into account to confirm the effectiveness of the suggested algorithm. Simulation results are introduced to show the enhanced performance of the developed CS based controllers in comparison with Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and conventional integral controller. These results denote that the proposed controllers offer better performance over others in terms of settling times and various indices.