Abstract

Presented herein is an application of two nature-inspired optimization techniques in tuning the gains of a Proportional Integral Derivative controller in the stabilization of synchronous generator terminal voltage, using Particle Swarm Optimization and the Firefly Algorithm. Using these algorithms, their respective controllers were optimized, upon which their performances were measured based on the metrics of rise time, settling time, and percentage overshoot. Among them, the PSO-PID controller performed the best; it had the fastest rise time, which was 0.0566 seconds, and the quickest settling time was 0.324 seconds; thus, being very effective in rapidly stabilizing the terminal voltage. However, it exhibited a slightly higher overshoot of 4.7% from that of a traditional PID controller. FA-PID controller showed balanced performance with a rise time of 0.0788 seconds and a settling time of 0.991 seconds. It did give the maximum overshoot, 7.53%. The conventional PID gave the minimum overshoot of 4.46% but with the slowest response: 0.559 seconds and 5.43 seconds settling time. Therefore, the PSO-PID controller emerged as the most effective in terms of speed and stability for maintaining the terminal voltage of a synchronous generator. Future research could explore hybrid optimization techniques to further enhance the performance of these controllers.

Copyright of the paper named above is hereby assigned and transferred to the Nigerian Journal of Applied Science and Innovative Technology published by College of Engineering, Bells University of Technology, Nigeria.