A Novel Superb Fairy-Wren Optimization Algorithm Based PID Controller for an Automatic Voltage Regulator System

In this study, a Superb Fairy-wren Optimization Algorithm (SFOA)-based proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller is proposed for the first time in the literature to improve transient voltage stability performance of automatic voltage regulator (AVR) systems. The proposed approach aims to optimally tune the PID controller gain parameters KP, KI and KD, which are used for voltage regulation in AVR systems. As a result of the optimization performed using SFOA, PID gain parameters are obtained as KP = 0.5914, KI = 0.4078 and KD = 0.1954. According to the transient voltage response analysis results, the SFOA-based PID controller showed superior performance, with a maximum overshoot of 0.02307, a rise time of 0.33 s, peak time of 0.636 s, fastest stabilization with settling time of 0.514 s within the ±2% tolerance band and steady-state error of 0.0012. Its performance was superior to several state-of-the-art, optimization-based methods reported in the literature. According to commonly used objective functions in AVR systems, integral of time absolute error (ITAE) and Zwe-Lee Gaing’s objective functions, the best results were obtained with values of 0.0489 and 0.0826, respectively. The results show that a SFOA-based PID controller can be an alternative and effective control approach for AVR systems with strong potential for optimization-based control applications in electric power systems.