A Comparative Study of PID, FOPID, ISF, SMC, and FLC Controllers for DC Motor Speed Control with Particle Swarm Optimization

Direct Current (DC) motors are extensively used in various applications due to their versatile and precise control capabilities. However, they face operational challenges such as speed instability and sensitivity to load variations and external disturbances. This study compares the performance of several advanced control methods—Proportional Integral Derivative (PID), Fractional Order PID (FOPID), Integral State Feedback (ISF), Sliding Mode Control (SMC), and Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) for DC motor control. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is employed to optimize the tuning parameters of PID, FOPID, ISF, and SMC controllers, while FLC is implemented without optimization. The simulation results indicate that the PSO-FOPID controller exhibits the best overall performance, characterized by the fastest rise and settling times and the lowest ITSE, despite a minor overshoot. The PSO-PID controller also performs well, with fast response times, although it is less efficient in terms of settling time and ITSE compared to PSO-FOPID. The OBL/HGSO-PID controller, while stable and overshoot-free, has a slower response. The PSO-ISF controller shows the highest stability with the lowest SSE values, making it suitable for applications requiring high stability. The PSO-SMC controller demonstrates good stability but is slightly slower than PSO-ISF. The FLC controller, however, performs the worst, with significant overshoot and long recovery times, making it unsuitable for fast and precise control applications. The robustness analysis under varying motor parameters further confirms the superiority of the PSO-FOPID controller, which outperforms OBL/HGSO and OBL-MRFO-SA optimizations across both PID and FOPID controllers, making it the most effective solution for applications requiring high precision and rapid response.