Abstract
Considering the higher flexibility in tuning process and finer control action of the fractional-order proportional integral derivative (FOPID) controller over the conventional proportional integral derivative (PID) controller, this paper explores its application in the automatic voltage regulator system. FOPID contains five tuning parameters as compared to three in the conventional PID controller. The additional tuning knobs in FOPID provide increased control flexibility and precise control action, however, their inclusion makes the tuning process more complex and tedious. Thus, the intelligence of an artificial intelligence (AI) technique called jaya optimization algorithm (JOA) is utilized in order to obtain an optimal combination of FOPID gains which further led to the optimal transient response and improved stability of the considered AVR system. To validate the performance superiority of the proposed approach its corresponding system’s dynamic response is compared with that of the other well-known AI-based approaches explored in recent literature. Furthermore, the stability study of the proposed AVR system is carried out by evaluating its pole/zero and bode maps. Finally, the robustness of the proposed optimized AVR system against the system’s parameter variation is evaluated by varying the time constants of all the four components of AVR (generator, exciter, amplifier and sensor) from −50% to +50% independently. The proposed algorithm based FOPID tuning technique provides 59.82%, 56.09%, 14.94%, 34.24%, 35.70%, 21.64%, 12.0%, 41.33%, 14.84% and 15.17% reduced overshoot than that of differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimization (PSO), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), Bibliography Based Optimization (BBO), Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA), Pattern Search Algorithm (PSA), Improved Kidney Inspired Algorithm (IKA), Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA) and Local Unimodal Sampling (LUS) algorithm respectively, thus validates its competence and effectiveness.