Ant Colony Optimization - a tool for online tuning of a PI controller for a three phase induction motor drive

This paper proposes the design of a feedback controller for a voltage controlled Induction Motor (IM) drive by using the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique. ACO is an evolutionary stochastic combinatorial computational discipline inspired by the behavior of ant colonies. A model of the induction motor drive is developed and its performance is evaluated while using a conventional PI controller. However it can well be seen that the system works satisfactorily for a particular operating point while its performance deteriorates for other operating points. This facilitates the need for online tuning. To accomplish this task a feedback controller is designed that uses ACO for online tuning. Comparison between two variants of ACO is also presented in this paper.