Ant lion optimized hybrid intelligent PID-based sliding mode controller for frequency regulation of interconnected multi-area power systems

In this article, a novel hybrid intelligent Proportional Integral Derivative (PID)-based sliding mode controller (IPID-SMC) is proposed to solve the LFC problem for realistic interconnected multi-area power systems. The optimization task for best-regulating parameters of the suggested controller structure is fulfilled by the ant lion optimizer (ALO) technique. To assess the usefulness and practicability of the suggested ALO optimized IPID-SMC controller, three test systems – that is, four-area hybrid power system, two-area reheat thermal-photovoltaic system and two-area multi-sources power system – are employed. Different nonlinearities such as generation rate constraint (GRC) and governor dead band (GDB) as a provenance of physical constraints are taken into account in the model of the two-area multi-sources power systems to examine the ability of the proposed strategy for handling the practical challenges. The acceptability and novelty of the ALO-based IPID-SMC controller to solve the systems mentioned above are appraised in comparison with some recently reported approaches. The specifications of time-domain simulation disclose that the designed proposed controller provides a desirable level of performance and stability compared with other existing strategies. Furthermore, to check the robustness of the suggested technique, sensitivity analysis is fulfilled by varying the operating loading conditions and plant parameters within a particular tolerable range.