1st Algerian Multi-Conference on Computer, Electrical and Electronic Engineering (AMCEEE'17)
24-27April 2017, Algiers, Algeria
Cooperative Artificial Bee Colony Optimization
to Improve PID Tuning in Automatic Voltage
Regulator System
Fatima Harfouchi
Applied Automation Laboratory
M'hamed Bougara University of Boumerdès
Av. de l’indépendance, Boumerdès, Algeria
harfouchi.fatima03@hotmail.com
Abstract— Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) system is
used in conjunction with synchronous generator to regulate
reactive power and voltage level under normal operating
conditions at various load levels. To guarantee the stability of
the whole power system, suitable control of AVR system must
be achieved. Basically, the control loop in AVR system involves
a PID controller which has the role of regulating the voltage
output of synchronous generator at a specified level. Suitable
tuning of PID parameters in AVR control loop is an important
issue which devoted special interest in literature. This paper
addresses the problem of optimal tuning of PID-controlled
AVR system by using a novel artificial bee colony (ABC)
strategy that relies on cooperative learning concept. The
optimization strategy referred to as cooperative learning
artificial bee colony (CLABC) algorithm is applied to the
problem of PID design for improved performance of AVR
system. The resulting performance is compared to other
conventional and ABC based tuning methods.
Keywords—PID controller; Tuning; Optimization; AVR
system; Artificial bee colony algorithm
I. INTRODUCTION
During past decades, industrial process control strategies
were subjected to great enhancements brought by the
development of various tools and approaches that have been
involved in both technical and theoretical plans. Advanced
control methods such as adaptive control [1], neural control
[2], fuzzy control [3], and computational intelligence based
control [4] have been introduced to the control field and
applied successfully to a number of application studies.
Although advanced control strategies showed considerable
improvements in many practical case studies, the
Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control strategy
remains the most widely used controller in industry with
almost 90% integration rate. Optimal tuning of PID
controller is however a challenging issue to which process
operators are frequently faced in practice. Indeed, many
controlled processes show complex dynamical behaviors that
impose hard constraints on the PID-controlled loops which,
in turn, should need retuning to preserve normal operation.
Hacene Habbi
Applied Automation Laboratory
M'hamed Bougara University of Boumerdès
Av. de l’indépendance, Boumerdès, Algeria
habbi_hacene@hotmail.com
This particular problem has made the subject of many
research works that attempted to develop suitable tuning
mechanisms for standard PID parameters. To this end,
several methods have been proposed in the literature [5].
Among the well-known conventional PID tuning methods,
the Ziegler-Nichols tuning rule is obviously the most
common in practice. The Ziegler-Nichols tuning rule works
quite well for a wide range of industrial processes. However,
it does not provide optimal tuning and tends to generate big
overshoots and large settling times which may induce non-
desirable effects on the controlled process dynamics. To
improve the performance of PID controller, optimal tuning
of its standard parameters can be formulated as an
optimization problem and solved by means of global search
methods. On this issue, swarm intelligence (SI) and
evolutionary algorithms such as particle swarm optimization
(PSO) [6], genetic algorithms (GA) [7], bat algorithm [8],
differential evolution (DE) [9] and artificial bee colony
(ABC) algorithm [10], have been investigated in many
studies.
In this paper, optimal tuning problem of PID controller
for automatic regulator voltage system is addressed by using
artificial bee colony optimization strategy. The AVR system
is used in conjunction with synchronous generator to
regulate reactive power and voltage level under normal
operating conditions at various load levels [11]. Synchronous
generators have a significant role in providing energy for
electrical systems. The stability of the whole power system is
closely related to the stability of synchronous generator. The
AVR control system is basically designed as PID control
loop for which optimal tuning is required to keep constant
the output voltage of synchronous generator. To achieve this
control objective, cooperative learning ABC optimization
based on multiple search rules is used. ABC optimization is
one of the most popular swarm algorithms, being introduced
by Karaboga in 2005 [12]. ABC concept has rapidly gained
the attention of researchers and applied to various scientific
and engineering problems in several fields [10], [13]-[17].
The basic ABC model was subjected to many improvements
to enhance its computational performance and robustness
 1st Algerian Multi-Conference on Computer, Electrical and Electronic Engineering (AMCEEE'17)
24-27April 2017, Algiers, Algeria
[18]-[20]. This study considers two ABC variants, namely
the Gbest-guided ABC algorithm (g-ABC) [18] and the
cooperative learning artificial bee colony (CLABC)
algorithm [21] to deal with the problem of improving PID-
controlled AVR system performance.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, a brief
review of PID controller and AVR system model is
presented. Section 3 is dedicated to the artificial bee colony
optimization strategy. Section 4 shows the simulation results
and discusses the compared performances. Conclusions are
finally formulated in Section 5.
II. LINEAR MODEL OF AVR SYSTEM
The AVR system control loop consists of five main
functional modules which are the controller, the amplifier,
the exciter, the generator and the sensor. Fig.1 depicts the
basic control configuration. Each of those components is
briefly described in the following.
A. PID Controller
The PID controller is used to improve the dynamic
response of AVR system as well as to reduce or eliminate
the steady-state error. As well-known, the PID controller
consists of Proportional, Integral and Derivative gains. The
equation for a PID controller (in the time domain) is
expressed by the following control law:
t de (t )
u t   k p .e t   k i  e   d   k d (1)
0 dt
where u t  and e t  denote the control signal and the error
signal, respectively. k p , k i and k d are the proportional,
integral and derivative constants, respectively. For
performance and stability purposes, the values of those
parameters must be suitably determined with regard to the
dynamics of the installed electrical components of AVR
system.
B. AVR System Model
The role of an AVR system is to keep constant the output
voltage of the synchronous generator at a specified level.
Depending on the application study, each component of the
control loop shown in Fig. 1 is modeled by means of linear
transfer functions.
The amplifier model can be described by a gain K A and
a tile constant  A , giving a first-order model of the form:
V (s ) KA
 R  
V E (s ) 1   A s
Typical values of K A are in the range of 10 to 400. The
amplifier time constant is very small ranging in general from
0.02 to 0.1 seconds.
The exciter model can be expressed by a transfer
function with gain K E and time constant  E . The model has
the form:
V F (s ) KE
 (3)
V R (s ) 1   E s
Typical values of K E are in the range of 10 to 400. The time
constant  E is in the range of 0.5 to 1.0 seconds.
The generator model is expressed by a first-order transfer
function which describes the functional relationship between
the generator output voltage and the field voltage. This
model can be represented by a gain K G and a time constant
 G , which gives:
V t (s ) KG
 (4)
V F (s ) 1   G s
These constants are load dependent, K G may vary between
0.7 to 1.0, and G between 1.0 and 2.0 seconds from full load
to no load.
Fig. 1. PID-controlled AVR system.
Finally, the sensor is modeled by a first-order transfer
function, given by :
V S (s ) KR
 (5)
V t (s ) 1   R s
 R is a very small time constant, ranging from 0.001 to 0.06
seconds.
III. ARTIFICIAL BEE COLONY OPTIMIZATION STRATEGY
A. Basic ABC Strategy
The artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is a swarm
based meta-heuristic algorithm which imitates the foraging
behavior of honey bees [12]. In ABC concept [22], the honey
bee colony model employs three types of bees: employed
bees, onlooker bees and scouts. An employed bee searches
around the current food source to find a new source position
with better nectar amount. If the nectar amount of the
discovered position is higher than that of the previous one,
the bee saves the new position in her memory and forgets the
old one. Each employed bee is associated with a food source,
in other words, the number of employed bees is equal to the
number of food sources. After all employed bees complete
their search processes, they share their information with
onlooker bees which are waiting in the hive. An onlooker
bee chooses a food source according to a probabilistic
greedy selection mechanism. Therefore, food sources with
better profitability will get higher probability to be selected
by the onlookers. Similar to employed bees, each onlooker
bee produces a modification on the position in her memory
 1st Algerian Multi-Conference on Computer, Electrical and Electronic Engineering (AMCEEE'17)
24-27April 2017, Algiers, Algeria
and investigates the nectar amount of the generated
candidate source. If a position cannot be improved further
through a predetermined limit tolerance called ''limit", then
that food source is assumed to be abandoned. The
corresponding employed bee becomes then a scout. The
abandoned position will be replaced with a new food source
found by the scout.
In the initialization phase, the algorithm generates
randomly a population of SN food sources (solutions) in the
admissible search domain as follows:
xi  x
j j
 rand  0,1  x x j
 v ij  x ij  ri j  x ij  x mean   r1ij  x kj  x kj1 
j
min max min
where i  1,2,..., SN , j  1,2,..., D , and D is the number of
optimization parameters; x min j
and x max
j
are the lower and
upper bounds for the dimension j, respectively. After
initialization, the population of food sources is subjected to
repeated cycles of the search processes of employed bees,
onlooker bees and scout bees.
In the employed bees' phase, each employed bee
generates a new candidate solution around its current
position by the following equation:
v ij  x ij  i j  x ij  x kj 
where i  1, 2,..., SN , j  1,2,..., D  and k  1, 2,...,SN are randomly
chosen indexes; k has to be different from i , and i j is a
random number in the range  1,1 . Greedy selection between
the old and the updated food source position is performed by
the employed bee based on fitness value evaluation. This
valuable information about the position and the quality of the
food sources are shared with the onlooker bees.
In the onlooker bees' phase, the onlookers receive the
information about the food sources shared by employed bees
and choose a food source to exploit depending on a
probability related to its nectar value which is computed by:
fit i
pi 
 fit n
SN
n 1
where fit i is the fitness value of the solution i . It should be
noted that onlooker bees also use Eq. (7) to generate new
candidate solutions.
In the scout bees' phase, the ABC algorithm deals with
food sources abandonment. Any solution that cannot be
improved through a predefined number of generations will
be abandoned and replaced by a new position that is
randomly determined by a scout bee by using Eq. (6).
B. Cooperative Learning Artificial Bee Colony Optimization
Strategy
Relying on the idea that employed foragers or onlooker
foragers of a bee swarm might have to evolve in separate
groups during the search process, a novel ABC variant,
referred to as CLABC, is introduced in our recent research
work [21]. The search strategy in the proposed CLABC
algorithm is based on multiple solution search equations
which are integrated in different ways at the employed and
onlooker stages. In the present study, the employed bees are
divided into 3 groups; each group forms a sub-population of
potential solutions and uses search equations different from
the other groups. The onlookers are arranged in one group.
The solution updating equations are given as follows [21]:
v ij  x ij  i j  x ij  x kj  (9)
v ij  x ki  i j  x ij  x kj 1  (10)
(6) j
(11)
v ij  x best
j
 ri j  x ij  x mean
j
  r1ij  x kj  x kj1  (12)
v ij  x kj  i j  x kj 1  x kj 2  (13)
v ij  x best
j
 i j  x kj  x kj 1  (14)
where i j  1,1 , ri j , r1ij  0,1 are random numbers generated
for each dimension at each processing time. x kj , x kj 1, x kj 2 , are
the j th dimensions of solutions selected randomly from the
(7) sub-populations. k , k 1 , k 2 , are not equal to each other and to
j
i . x best denotes the j th dimension of the best solution
obtained by the sub-population so far. x mean j
is the average
th
solution corresponding to the j dimension for all solutions
in the sub-populations.
At employed phase, search equations (9) and (10) are
called by the first group of foragers to generate new
candidate solutions. Only one of these two search equations
is used to perform solution updating based on an increasing
probability defined by  iter / MCN 1/3 , where iter is the
current generation number and MCN is the maximum
number of cycles. If the random value between 0 and 1 is
smaller than or equal to the predefined probability, then Eq.
(9) is used. Otherwise, search mechanism described by Eq.
(8) (10) is performed. Based on the same definition of
probability given above, (11) and (12) are used for the
second group, and (13) and (14) for the last group.
Besides, in order to increase the convergence speed of
the algorithm, employed bees are managed to start by
changing one random dimension as basic ABC does. Then,
when the number of iterations reaches iter  MCN / 4 , the
algorithm will have to optimize randomly one or all
parameters simultaneously. While reaching the end of the
optimization process, i.e. between iter  MCN / 2 and
iter  MCN , the employed bees will update all parameters of
the solution.
Subsequently, after completion of the employed bee
phase and based on greedy selection, the onlookers will start
to change one random parameter of the solution by using Eq.
(10). When iter  MCN / 4 , the onlooker bees will have to
update randomly all parameters of the solution by using Eq.
(9) or only one random dimension through Eq. (10).
 1st Algerian Multi-Conference on Computer, Electrical and Electronic Engineering (AMCEEE'17)
24-27April 2017, Algiers, Algeria

IV. NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
In order to illustrate the performance of the proposed
cooperative learning ABC based optimal PID tuning strategy
for AVR system, comparative study of ABC, g-ABC and
conventional Ziegler-Nichols tuning methods is presented.
Setting parameters for the population-based algorithms are
set as follows: the lower and upper bounds of the PID gains
are taken as [0.2, 2]. The colony size is set to 30, the
abandoned limit is chosen as SN*D, and the number of
iterations is chosen as 25. The control parameter C in g-ABC
the other hand, ABC, g-ABC and CLABC based tuning rules
of AVR system’s PID controller outperform considerably
well the conventional Ziegler-Nichols tuning method. Here,
it is important to mention that the resulting performances of
ABC strategies are reached through 25 iterations only. The
superiority of the CLABC tuning method is however due to
improvements introduced at the employed and onlooker
stages of ABC model, allowing better characterization of the
cooperative foraging behavior of swarm bees.
1.5
Terminal voltage step response

algorithm is set to 1.5. Each global search algorithm is run Ziegler-Nichols

10 times. ABC-PID
gABC-PID
CLABC-PID
The objective function to be optimized is formulated by
1
considering different temporal performance specifications

terminal voltage
which are the Rise Time (RT), the Settling Time (ST), the
Peak Overshoot (PK) and the Integral of Time Weighted
Absolute Error (ITAE). The performance criteria is then
0.5
expressed by:
f    PK  ST   RT  ITAE (15)

The AVR system parameters are given in Table 1. The 0

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
parameters are illustrated according to the block diagram of Time (s)

Fig. 1.
Fig. 2. Comparison of Ziegler-Nichols, ABC, g-ABC and CLABC tuning
methods of PID control in AVR system.
TABLE I. AVR MODEL PARAMETERS
Amplifier K A = 10; A = 0.1 V. CONCLUSION
Exciter K E = 1; E = 0.4 This paper presents an application study of cooperative
Generator K G = 1; G =1
learning artificial bee colony (CLABC) optimization to the
problem of parameters tuning of PID controller in electrical
Sensor K R = 1; R = 0.01 automatic voltage regulator (AVR) system. The suggested
tuning method aims at determining optimal parameters of
PID control for AVR system in order to improve transient
Comparative results of Ziegler-Nichols method, ABC, g- response of synchronous generator output voltage. The
ABC and CLABC tuning methods are presented in Table 2. corresponding control problem is formulated as a global
The results are shown in terms of best obtained results. The search optimization problem which is solved based on ABC
voltage step responses of the AVR system obtained by the optimization strategy relying on cooperative foraging and
compared algorithms are depicted in Fig. 2. multiple search mechanisms defined at both employed and
onlooker phases. The results are compared to conventional
TABLE II. CONTROL PERFORMANCE OF AVR SYSTEM OBTAINED BY Ziegler-Nichols method, and to other results obtained by
DIFFERENT TUNING METHODS using ABC and g-ABC models. The resulting performances
Tuning Methods of ABC strategies on PID tuning outperform the
Ziegler- conventional Ziegler-Nichols method. However, the CLABC
Parameters ABC g-ABC CLABC
Nichols tuning rules achieves better performance than ABC and g-
Kp 0.4673 0.8563 0.8487 0.7221 ABC algorithms. Metaheuristic tuning of PID controllers is a
Ki 0.8801 1.0234 1.2475 0.8958 promising tool for optimal control implementation.
Kd 0.0620 0.4004 0.4223 0.3731
Computational cost of real-time tuning or retuning of PID
RT (s) 2.42 0.16 0.09 0.18
ST (s) 3.62 0.44 0.44 0.27
control laws is an effective challenge that might define an
PK (%) 46.93 8.05 8.44 3.85 interesting future research direction.

From Table 2, it can be concluded that CLABC based

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