Automatic generation control of multi-area system using non-integer order IλDμ controller

In this paper a maiden attempt has been made to examine and investigates the effect of bacterial foraging (BF) optimized fractional order integral and derivative (FOID or I^λD^μ) controller in automatic generation control (AGC) of a multi-area thermal system considering single stage of reheat turbine and appropriate generation rate constraint (GRC). The performances of several classical integer-order (IO) controllers such as I, PI and PID controllers is evaluated and compared with I^λD^μ controller to assess the best controller. Investigation reveals that I^λD^μ controller provides better performance than the IO controllers in terms of settling time, reduced oscillations and peak overshoots. This paper employs bacterial foraging algorithm for optimization of gains and other parameters such as order of integrator (λ) and differentiator (μ) in case of I^λD^μ controller. Further, sensitivity analysis is carried out for the first time in the system considered to investigate the robustness of the optimum gains, λ and μ of I^λD^μ controllers obtained at nominal condition.