Voltage flicker measurement using particle swarm optimization technique for power quality assessment

Measurements of voltage flicker levels and its frequency is of great concern to the utility in order to prevent unacceptable voltage fluctuation in the supplying system and to evaluate the power quality. This paper introduces a new digital approach for the measurements of voltage flicker and its frequency using particle swarm optimization technique (PSO). The problem is formulated as a dynamic estimation problem. The goal is to minimize the error of the estimated coefficients via a deigned fitness function. The method is tested using simulated case study. The algorithm is tested using simulated data. The effects of the number of samples, sampling frequency and the sample window size are studied. Results are reported and discussed