Abstract
This paper presents the speed control of DC series motor supplied by photovoltaic system. The proposed design problem of speed controller is formulated as an optimization problem. Firefly algorithm (FA) is employed to search for optimal proportional integral (PI) parameters of speed controller by minimizing the time domain objective function. The performance of the proposed FA-based speed control of DC series motor has been compared with genetic algorithm, and the conventional PI controller tuned by Ziegler–Nichols under various operating conditions and disturbances. The results of the proposed FA are demonstrated through time domain analysis and various performance indices. Simulation results have shown the validity of the proposed technique in controlling the speed of DC series motor over other algorithms.