Voltage profile enhancement of an AVR system using ant lion optimization algorithm

Abstract This paper addresses voltage regulation, which is a critical issue in power systems. The automatic voltage regulator (AVR) plays a crucial role in maintaining voltage regulation within permissible limits The AVR system’s dynamic behaviour is improved by applying the Proportional (K P ) Integral (K I ) Derivative (K D ) (PID) controller. The primary challenges of using a PID controller in AVR include difficulties in tuning parameters to handle nonlinearities, load disturbances, and system dynamics, leading to potential instability, overshoot, or slow response. The controller parameters are tuned with Ant Lion Optimisation (ALO) algorithm and Integral Time Absolute Error (ITAE) as an objective function. Also, the proposed system has the ability to improve the transient response of AVR by decreasing the maximum overshoot, settling time, rise time, and peak time magnitudes of the generator terminal voltage with eliminating the steady state error. Once the suggested method had produced the best values for the three gains i.e., K P , K I , and K D of the PID controller, a transient response analysis is examined and compared with some of the existing techniques such as Bat Algorithm (BA), Grey Wolf Optimisation (GWO) and Biogeography Based Optimisation (BBO) algorithm to highlight the novelty of the proposed ALO optimized PID controller. Transient response analysis, root locus analysis, and bode analysis are used to assess the AVR system’s stability. Comparisons to three well-known optimization techniques corroborate the findings. The results show that this new suggested method performs exceptionally well even when there are significant variations in power system parameters and load uncertainties.