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Optimal Coordination of Directional Overcurrent Relays Using Biogeography-

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1810
Optimal Coordination of Directional Overcurrent
Relays Using Biogeography-Based
Optimization Algorithms
Fadhel A. Albasri, Member, IEEE, Ali R. Alroomi, Member, IEEE, and Jawad H. Talaq, Member, IEEE
Abstract—Optimal coordination of directional overcurrent re-
lays (DOCRs) is a highly constrained and nonlinear optimization
problem. The operating time of each relay depends on two inde-
pendent variables called plug setting and time multiplier setting.
As the network becomes larger and more complex, the number of
relays will increase and, thus, finding the optimal solution becomes
very hard. In this paper, a new population-based evolutionary algo-
rithm called biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is proposed
and the performance of ten types of constraint-handling techniques
is evaluated. In addition, a new hybrid BBO with linear program-
ming (BBO-LP) is proposed to enhance the performance of the
conventional BBO algorithm. The performance of the proposed
BBO-based algorithms is evaluated by using five test systems. The
results show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed algo-
rithms compared with the performance of the other optimization
methods presented in the literature.
Index Terms—Biogeography-based optimization (BBO), direc-
tional overcurrent relay, evolutionary algorithms, linear program-
ming, optimal coordination, penalty functions.
I. INTRODUCTION
D IRECTIONAL overcurrent relays (DOCRs) are applied
to multiloop systems, ring feeder systems, double-end fed
power systems, or even single-end fed power systems of parallel
feeders. DOCRs can be used as primary relays for intercon-
nected subtransmission and distribution systems, and as local
backup relays for transmission systems [1]–[3].
The coordination of DOCRs is a very important stage for any
protection design. Correct relay coordination involves selecting
the suitable relay setting that ensures faults in the protected zone
are cleared first by the corresponding primary relays and if they
fail, the corresponding backup relays act after a coordination
time delay. The relays have two settings, namely; “plug setting”
(PS) and “time multiplier setting” (TMS). The operating time of
each relay is a function of these two settings.
The coordination problem is a highly constrained mixed-in-
teger nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, where TMS
is continuous and PS is discrete. It requires an expert protection
Manuscript received June 17, 2014; revised September 30, 2014 and De-
cember 11, 2014; accepted January 23, 2015. Date of publication February 24,
2015; date of current version July 21, 2015. Paper no. TPWRD-00715-2014.
F. A. Albasri and J. H. Talaq are with the Department of Electrical
and Electronics Engineering, University of Bahrain, Bahrain (e-mail:
falbasri@uob.edu.bh; jtalaq@gmail.com).
A. R. Alroomi is with the Department of Electricity Production, Bahrain Elec-
tricity and Water Authority, Bahrain (e-mail: wadyan@gmail.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2015.2406114
0885-8977 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, AUGUST 2015
engineer to solve it analytically, where all faults, system con-
tingencies, and abnormalities are analyzed and predetermined.
Alternatively, it can be solved easily by using optimization
methods [4]. The objective of the optimal coordination of
DOCRs is to find the values of PS and TMS of all relays
that minimize the sum of their operating times when they act
as primary relays and all of the coordination constraints are
satisfied [5].
A. Literature Review
Solving the coordination problem of DOCRs is an old tedious
task. In the past, the optimal coordination was impossible based
on the availability of techniques and technologies. Instead, an
acceptable nonoptimal coordination was implemented to meet
the protection requirements for the simple electrical networks
that existed at that time.
There are different approaches to solve the coordination
problem of DOCRs. They can be classified as: Topological
methods (graph theory and functional dependencies) and opti-
mization methods (including adaptive techniques), which are
summarized in [6].
In the 1960s, the computer was used to overcome this labo-
rious calculation [7]–[10]. It was assumed that the relative se-
quence of computation of DOCRs settings was predetermined.
A trial-and-error approach is considered in [9]. However, it has
a low convergence rate since it requires a large number of iter-
ations to reach a suitable relay setting [11]. Knable [12] is the
first one who considered both parts of the coordination problem;
namely, the relay settings computation and the relative sequence
of that computation by using the heuristic scheme. Dwarakanath
et al. [13] used the concept of linear graph theory to determine
the relative sequence in a multiloop network based on a min-
imal breakpoint set (BPS). Jenkins et al. [14] used the concept
of functional dependency as a flexible and powerful alterna-
tive to identify the minimal BPS. Although these methods have
reduced the number of iterations needed for the coordination
process, they suffer from a relatively high time dial setting [11].
In 1988, the Gauss–Seidel iterative technique was success-
fully used by Urdaneta et al. [5]. However, because the coordi-
nation of DOCRs is a nonlinear problem, predetermined values
of PS are considered in order to convert it to a linear problem.
Although this assumption reduces the CPU time and makes the
problem easier to solve, it needs an expert protection engineer
for setting the initial PS. Moreover, there is no guarantee for
converging to the global optima.
ALBASRI et al.: OPTIMAL COORDINATION OF DIRECTIONAL OVERCURRENT RELAYS
Linear-programming (LP) techniques, including simplex,
two-phase simplex, and dual simplex, are commonly used if
the coordination problem is constructed in a linear form [15].
However, when PS and TMS are considered as variables, the
problem becomes nonlinear and, hence, nonlinear program-
ming (NLP) is used. Also, in order to increase the chance
for finding feasible solutions, the values of PS are taken as a
continuous and then rounded off at the end of the program for
obtaining a discretized PS vector. As a result, the final solution
may drift away from its previous optimum state. LP is a fast
and simple algorithm, but it is highly vulnerable to be trapped
in local minima. In contrast, NLP gives better performance,
but it may converge to local minima, especially with wrong
selected initial values of PS and TMS. In addition, it is more
complex and consumes more CPU time.
Evolutionary algorithms (EAs), such as ant colony optimiza-
tion (ACO), bee colony optimization (BCO), genetic algorithm
(GA), differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimization
(PSO), teaching learning-based optimization (TLBO), harmony
search algorithm, firefly algorithm, black hole algorithm, etc,
have been successfully applied to solve the optimal coordina-
tion problem [16]–[21]. EAs are multipoint search techniques
and can be used to ensure reaching the area of global optimum,
but their convergence speed is slow and requires high CPU time.
Hybrid techniques have been considered to overcome the draw-
backs of the previous optimization algorithms. However, these
algorithms become more complex for implementation [4], [22].
Based on the preceding conducted studies, the performance
of the constraint-handling techniques is not extensively covered.
Moreover, achieving feasible and optimal solution is a chal-
lenging task for complicated systems, where the speed and sim-
plicity of any proposed algorithm are very important issues that
have to be considered. Furthermore, most of the EAs require a
high number of population and generations, which would affect
their convergence speed. In this paper, all of these issues will be
addressed by using a new EA called biogeography-based opti-
mization (BBO). Although the BBO algorithm was presented
by Dan Simon in 2008 [23] as a new EA and proved to be a
very competitive and fast method compared to the other EAs, it
has not yet been applied in the area of optimal coordination of
protective relays.
B. Contributions
The following points summarize the contributions of this
paper as follows.
1) The BBO algorithm is applied to solve the optimal coor-
dination problem of DOCRs, and its performance is eval-
uated and compared for ten different constraint-handling
techniques.
2) A new preprocessing subalgorithm is proposed to avoid the
infeasible solutions.
3) A hybridization of BBO with LP is proposed to improve
the convergence speed by reducing the required number of
iterations and, hence, reduces the CPU time.
The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated
using five different test systems and is compared with the
performance of the other proposed methods in the literature.
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1811
C. Paper Organization
This paper is organized as follows: Section II presents the
formulation of the optimal coordination problem. An overview
of BBO is covered in Section II-C. Then, Section III presents
the proposed modifications on the BBO algorithm, and fol-
lowed by the performance comparisons and discussions in
Section IV. Finally, the conclusions and suggestions are pre-
sented in Section V.
II. FORMULATION OF THE COORDINATION PROBLEM
Based on the time–current characteristic curves (TCCCs),
overcurrent relays (OCRs) can be categorized into three main
types: 1) instantaneous; 2) definite time; and 3) inverse time. In
this paper, only the inverse time DOCR is considered.
A. Objective Function
If an electrical network contains relays, then the operating
time of the th relay for a fault at location is computed as
(1)
where is a fault current seen by the relay for a fault at
location . can be modeled using the standard IEC or ANSI/
IEEE characteristics [24], [25]. In general, it can be expressed
as [2]
(2)
For the sake of presenting a fair comparison with the perfor-
mance of the other methods presented in the literature, the IEC
inverse definite minimum time (IDMT) characteristic is selected
in this paper, where the constants and are set equal to
0.02, 0.14, and 0, respectively.
The objective is to find the values of and of each
DOCR (at predetermined of all relays and fault locations
from fault analysis), so the weighted sum of the operating times,
when relays work as primary, is minimized as
(3)
where represents the probability of a given fault that may
occur in each location of the protective zones. All of the weights
in (3) are considered to be one [5]. If only one location is con-
sidered as a fault point for each line, (3) is reduced to
(4)
Optimization of the objective function is subjected to the fol-
lowing constraints:
1) Coordination Criteria: If the primary relay fails to iso-
late the fault at location , one or more backup relays in the
upstream should initiate the trip signal after waiting, at least,
the operating time of the primary relay plus the coordination
time interval (CTI). This sequence will create a discrimination
margin between the primary-backup (P/B) pair which satisfies
1812 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, AUGUST 2015

the selectivity criteria and prevents maloperation. Thus, the op-

erating time of the backup relay for a given fault at lo-
cation is subjected to the following constraint:

(5)

where is given as

(6)

where is a fault current at location that is seen by the

Fig. 1. Simplified equilibrium model of a biota of a single island.
backup relay . The value of CTI varies between 0.2 and 0.5
s depending on the relay type, circuit breaker (CB) operating
time, and security margin [2], [26]. The transient topologies
B. Assumptions
occur when only one relay of a protected zone has operated [5].
If these conditions are considered, then the optimal coordination It is important to note that this paper takes into account the
problem should satisfy this constraint, which can be formulated same assumptions that have been considered in the other studies
as reported in the literature in order to have a fair comparison be-
tween the performance of the proposed algorithm and the other
(7) reported algorithms. The assumptions are as follows [4], [22],
[27]:
where and are the operating times of the P/B relay pairs • Networks' signals are not affected by decaying dc compo-
under the transient condition. nents, harmonics, and/or current-transformer saturation.
2) Side Constraint on the Relay Operating Time: The oper- • Thermal limits of transmission/subtransmission lines are
ating time of relays is practically bounded by two limits, which not considered.
can be expressed as • Networks' topologies are fixed, except for the three-bus
system which considers the transient condition.
(8)
• Time-current characteristics are limited to the IDMT
where and are the minimum and maximum oper- curve, except for test case 5.
ating times of for a fault at location , respectively.
C. Biogeography-Based Optimization (BBO)
depends on the relay manufacturer, whereas depends on
the critical clearing time required to prevent equipment damage Biogeography is a branch of biology, and island biogeog-
and preserve system stability. raphy is a special field within biogeography science [28]. This
3) Side Constraint on the Time Multiplier Setting: The TMS field was initially started by the ecologists Robert H. MacArthur
is bounded by the available range of settings provided by the and Edward O. Wilson between 1960 and 1963 with their pub-
relay manufacturer, which can be expressed as lished paper [29], and the study continued until 1967 with their
final achievement [30].
(9) The equilibrium theory of island biogeography proposes that
the number of inhabited species on an island is based on the
where and are the minimum and maximum dynamic equilibrium between new immigrated species onto an
values of of the relay . island and the extinct species out from that island [31]. Thus, the
4) Side Constraint on the Plug Setting: Practically, the PS of migration behavior of a biota on a single island can be presented
the relay should be set higher than the circuit nominal current in a simplified linear model as shown in Fig. 1.
and lower than minimum fault current which can be expressed and are the maximum immigration and emigration rates,
as respectively. If the simplified model is chosen, then . is
the number of species at the equilibrium point, is the species
(10)
turnover rate at that point, and is the maximum number
These two bounds can be calculated as of species on that island [23], [29], [30], shown in (17), at the
bottom of the next page.
(11) Now, suppose that the island contains species with proba-
bility at time , and and are, respectively, the immi-
(12) gration and emigration rates presented in . Then, the variation
from to can be described as [23]
where is the nominal current rating of the circuit protected
by relay . OLF is the overload factor, CTR is the CT ratio,
and is the minimum fault current that should be detected
by relay [2]. (13)

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ALBASRI et al.: OPTIMAL COORDINATION OF DIRECTIONAL OVERCURRENT RELAYS 1813

From the curves of Fig. 1, and can be expressed as is low, and the solution is considered poor; while is lo-
cated after , where is low, is high, and the solution
(14) is considered good. Thus, and are used as indications of
poor and good solutions, respectively. In the migration process,
(15) the high ISI islands share their features to modify the low ISI
islands, where the islands of both sides are probabilistically se-
For (13), to have species at time , one of the fol- lected. The high ISI islands become the source of modification,
lowing three conditions should hold [29], [30]: while the low ISI islands become the recipients of those emi-
1) species at time , and no immigration or emigration took grated species. With this process, the poor islands are enhanced
place during the interval ; in each generation.
2) species at time , and one species immigrated; E. Mutation
3) species at time , and one species emigrated.
As approaches 0, the ratio approaches The features available on an island can be changed
dramatically due to random events called mutations, which
forces to deviate from its equilibrium value. Most observed
mutations are harmful, such as predators from other islands,
tsunamis, diseases, or earthquakes. On the other hand, there
are some useful events that can improve those SIV to give
(16) better solutions, such as flotsams or wind-carrying seeds. In
BBO, this mutation process is modeled as SIV mutation, where
By considering the previous conditions, (16) becomes (17), the mutation rate can be determined as a function of species
as shown at the bottom of the page. count probabilities as follows:
Thus, using the known values and , the value of
in (13) can be approximated as (20)
(18) where is a user-defined maximum mutation rate that
Equation (18) is the final form that has to be used for calcu- can reach and .
lating in the BBO program. From (20), is inversely proportional to , where it reaches
In BBO, the general problem solution means the natural dis- the minimum value “zero” at the maximum value of , and
tribution of species [23]. Each island represents one candidate vice-versa. The objective of using the mutation rate is to keep
solution. If the island has many features (trees, water, light, the individuals at the equilibrium point not affected by the mu-
area, etc), then it will attract more species from the mainland or tation process. In contrast, the low and high ISI individuals are
other islands. Each feature is called the suitability index variable likely to mutate, which gives them the ability to enhance their
(SIV), and represents an independent variable of such a problem results [32].
in BBO. On the other hand, the island suitability index (ISI) rep- F. Elitism
resents the dependent variable and depends on the availability
of these features on an island [31]. Thus, if a problem has -in- It is an optional process that can be used in BBO for saving
dependent variables and -islands or individuals, then it can be the required best solutions for the next generations [32].
expressed as G. Clear Duplication
(19) This optional process is embedded in BBO for increasing the
diversity of the solutions by clearing any duplicated .
The algorithm of BBO consists of two main subalgorithms:,
migration (immigration and emigration) and mutation. H. BBO Variations and Forms
Many variations have been proposed in the literature to the
D. Migration basic BBO algorithm. From the preceding studies reported
Considering (19), the high ISI for island represents a good in the literature on BBO, the performance evaluation among
solution, and high ISI means a large number of available species the four original forms of the BBO algorithms found that the
on that island, which forces the immigration rate to be low first presented model in [23], which is known as the partial
and emigration rate to be high; and vice-versa for a poor so- migration based BBO (PMB-BBO), gives the best results as
lution. In Fig. 1, is located before , where is high, the complexity, side constraints and/or dimensions of a given

if
if (17)
if

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1814
problem increase and as the number of islands or population
size decrease. However, it is the slowest algorithm which
requires around 42.30% more CPU time than that of the fastest
algorithm [31]. The associated weaknesses in its migration and
mutation subalgorithms are solved in [33] by using pseudo-
random integers for the SIV selection process, and keeping
nonmutated islands away from the clear duplication process.
This enhanced BBO version can save about 32.32% of its total
CPU time with better performance. Thus, the modified PMB
model given in [33] is used in this paper.
III. PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS
A. Constraint-Handling Techniques
Various techniques have been proposed to handle and
satisfy the constraints of the coordination problem, such as
Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) [5] and death penalty function
[18], [22]. In addition, this issue is either not mentioned at all
in some papers, or insufficient details are given such as the
unknown exterior penalty function that was reported in [4] and
[27]. Therefore, it is important to further carry investigations
on this issue because it directly affects the performance of
the optimization algorithm in terms of the overall cost and
convergence speed (CPU time) [34].
The penalty functions are often used, because the other ap-
proaches are hard to model and/or need derivations [34]. In ad-
dition, the exterior penalty function (EPF) is preferred in con-
strained EAs, because the interior penalty function (IPF) re-
quires feasible individuals which, in turn, complicates the solu-
tion of the MINLP problems using EAs. As a result, this paper
will focus mainly on the EPF methods and the classical random
search method, which is classified as one of the direct search
methods. The ten methods that will be investigated in this paper
are as follows:
1) random search method;
2) death penalty function (infinite barrier penalty);
3) binary static penalty function;
4) superiority of feasible points—type I;
5) superiority of feasible points—type II;
6) eclectic evolutionary algorithm.
7) typical dynamic penalty function;
8) exponential dynamic penalty function;
9) adaptive multiplication penalty function;
10) self-adaptive penalty function.
The full description of these constraint-handling techniques
can be found in [34]–[36].
B. Avoiding the Infeasibility Condition
It is very hard to find an optimal and feasible solution of the
coordination problem because it is a highly constrained MINLP
problem. Some researchers obtained good results but with some
few constraint violations, as in [4] and [22].
The nature of this infeasibility condition comes from the com-
plexity of the network or/and the lack of diversity of PS values.
If the network is large and PS is provided with a limited number
of discrete values, then finding a solution that satisfies all of
the selectivity constraints of P/B DOCR pairs becomes very
difficult and requires a high number of generations. This led
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, AUGUST 2015
researchers to put more effort in studying the sources of that
problem in order to overcome that infeasibility issue.
In [37], the selectivity constraints are extensively investi-
gated, and the infeasibility range of each P/B relays pair is
identified by dividing the overall range into four categories:
1) nonvalid; 2) preobtained; 3) redundant; and 4) valid. Based
on that, the total number of constraints is reduced and, hence,
the chance to obtain feasible solutions is increased. In addition,
when an infeasible solution is detected, a search for a feasible
solution is carried out through a while loop unit where either
the relays TCCCs or their PS values are changed randomly
until a feasible solution is found. However, this technique
cannot be applied if the DOCRs are modeled with only IDMT
characteristics. Although there are other proposed techniques,
such as [38], they are either complicated to implement or fail
to reach a feasible solution.
Consequently, this paper proposes some enhancements to the
technique proposed in [37]. In this paper, PS and TMS are ran-
domly generated through the while loop unit, which is shown
in Fig. 2 as the preprocessing unit. This proposed preprocessing
unit is incorporated within the conventional BBO (as well as
within the hybrid BBO-LP algorithm) to solve very complex and
nonconvex problems, and gives feasible solutions even within
few generations which were not achieved in [4] and [22].
C. Hybridization With Linear Programming
Unlike gradient-based algorithms, EAs are probabilistic-
based multipoint search techniques. The fact that makes them
very slow convergent and time-consuming algorithms. Thus,
many researchers prefer to use only LP and NLP techniques,
while the others hybridized them with EAs [4], [22].
In order to accelerate the convergence speed and accuracy, a
hybrid BBO with LP is proposed in this paper as shown in Fig. 2.
LP is selected instead of NLP for the sake of speed and sim-
plicity. The LP algorithm can be constructed by considering the
objective function of the DOCRs coordination problem given by
(4) and the corresponding constraints given by (5)–(10). First,
the BBO algorithm is executed normally, and the fitness per gen-
eration is selected. From that fitness, the obtained TMS values
are set as initial points to the LP subalgorithm, while PS values
are set as a predetermined setting. Based on that, in (2) and
in (6) become constants and, hence, (2) and (6) are lin-
earized during the LP stage.
The overall flowchart of the proposed BBO-LP algorithm
is shown in Fig. 2, which includes all of the preceding pro-
posed modifications. It should be noted that the clear duplication
process covers only the TMS (if PS is discrete) in order to avoid
infinite loops.
IV. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON AND DISCUSSIONS
The performance of the BBO algorithm with and without hy-
bridization is evaluated for five different test systems. The algo-
rithm's parameters for each system are listed in Table I.
For a fair comparison with the work done in [4] and [27], the
algorithms are coded using MATLAB R2011a and the simula-
tion is carried out using Pentium IV, 3.06 GHz, and 512 MB
RAM with the 32-b Windows XP SP3 operating system.
ALBASRI et al.: OPTIMAL COORDINATION OF DIRECTIONAL OVERCURRENT RELAYS 1815

TABLE I
BBO PARAMETERS FOR EACH TEST CASE

Fig. 3. Single-line diagram of the three-bus system.

TABLE II
COMPARISON BETWEEN 10 CONSTRAINT-HANDLING TECHNIQUES. THE CPU
TIME IS NORMALIZED TO THE EXP. DYNAMIC PENALTY FUNCTION

A. Test Case 1: Three-Bus System

The system is shown in Fig. 3. In this test case, the transient
selectivity constraints are considered. All of the CT ratios, the
listed P/B relay pairs, and the corresponding currents for the
three-phase fault at the middle of each line are given in
[27]. The PS is considered discrete in uniform steps of 0.5 A.
The effect of the ten constraint-handling techniques on the
performance of the conventional BBO is evaluated based on 50
Monte-Carlo simulations as shown in Table II. In Table II, the
“Best” and “Worst” stand for the best and the worst solutions,
the “Mean” and “StdDev” stand for the mean and the standard
deviation of all 50 trials, and the “CPU” stands for the average
normalized CPU time. It can be clearly seen that the binary static
penalty outperforms the others, and achieved the third fastest
method. The binary static penalty used in this study has only
one element of the penalty multiplier vector, which can be tuned
easily and quickly. Adaptive and self-adaptive penalties show
competitive results. However, their speed performance, which
is a very important factor in protective relaying, is not good.
The same performance results are obtained for other simulated
larger systems.
As stated before, EAs are slow convergent techniques and,
Fig. 2. Flowchart of the BBO-LP algorithm.
hence, the conventional BBO needs a greater number of gen-
erations [4], [22]. As a result, the hybrid BBO-LP is proposed.

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1816
TABLE III
COMPARISON BETWEEN BBO AND BBO-LP FOR TEST CASE 1. THE CPU TIME
IS NORMALIZED TO THE EXP. DYNAMIC PENALTY FUNCTION
TABLE IV
COMPARISON WITH THE SEEKER ALGORITHM FOR TEST CASE 1
TABLE V
COMPARISON WITH THE PSO ALGORITHM FOR TEST CASE 1
Table III shows that the performance of the proposed BBO-LP
is better than the performance of the conventional BBO with
respect to all performance criteria. Similarly, the proposed
BBO-LP achieved better performance compared to the Seeker
algorithm [27] as shown in Table IV. It can be clearly seen from
Table IV that the BBO-LP has similar PS and more tuned TMS
than the Seeker algorithm and, as a result, obtained a slightly
better feasible solution. For a fair comparison with the PSO
algorithm [39], the simulation is carried for same population
size, and the result is shown in Table V. The result shows that
the BBO-LP gives better performance compared with BBO and
PSO.
B. Test Case 2: Four-Bus System
The network consists of 4 buses, 4 branches and 8 DOCRs, as
shown in Fig. 4. Both PS and TMS are considered continuous.
The full system data are available in [17] and [18].
In this case study, both near-end and far-end fault locations
are considered. Thus, the objective function of (4) is modified
for this test case as follows:
(21)
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, AUGUST 2015
Fig. 4. Single-line diagram of the four-bus system.
TABLE VI
COMPARISON BETWEEN BBO AND BBO-LP FOR TEST CASE 2
TABLE VII
COMPARISON WITH OTHER PAPERS FOR TEST CASE 2
where and represent the time of the th primary relay
for near-end and far-end faults, respectively.
Table VI shows the performance comparison between BBO
and BBO-LP for this test case. The result shows that the BBO
and BBO-LP achieved feasible solutions without any violation.
Table VII shows the performance of the proposed algorithms in
comparison with the modified DE (MDE) [17] and TLBO [18].
Although the MDE obtained slightly lower objective function
compared to BBO-LP, it failed to achieve a feasible solution as
there are some cases of selectivity constraints violations, which
is also mentioned in [18].
C. Test Case 3: Eight-Bus System
The network of this test case is shown in Fig. 5, where
the near-end fault is considered. The CT ratios and the
short-circuit current for each P/B pair of relays are avail-
able in [4] and [27], where the discretized PS is set as
A.
The performance comparison between BBO and BBO-LP is
shown in Table VIII, and the comparison with other algorithms
presented in the literature (PSO, GA and GA-LP) is shown in
Table IX. These two tables show that the hybrid BBO-LP gives
the best results, while the comparison between the conventional
EAs shows that the BBO algorithm performs better compared
with GA and PSO. Moreover, BBO-LP requires just 6.79 s to
ALBASRI et al.: OPTIMAL COORDINATION OF DIRECTIONAL OVERCURRENT RELAYS 1817

Fig. 5. Single-line diagram of the eight-bus system.

Fig. 7. Single-line diagram of the nine-bus system.

TABLE X
COMPARISON BETWEEN BBO AND BBO-LP FOR TEST CASE 4

TABLE XI
COMPARISON WITH OTHER PAPERS FOR TEST CASE 4

Fig. 6. Fitness log-log curves of the BBO and BBO-LP for the eight-bus
system.

TABLE VIII
COMPARISON BETWEEN BBO AND BBO-LP FOR TEST CASE 3 without first solving the associated infeasibility conditions.
Thus, both BBO and BBO-LP outperform GA and GA-LP,
respectively, in all criteria (feasibility, fitness, and processing
speed); and they require less population size and generations
for converging to a feasible near optimal solution.

D. Test Case 4: Nine-Bus System

A nine-bus interconnected distribution system with one
single end fed and equal impedances for all of the lines is con-
sidered, as shown in Fig. 7. All of the DOCRs are considered
to be numerical, where PS and TMS are continuous, and PS
limits are calculated using (11) and (12) with 1.25.
In addition, relays are assumed with no
backup and a fault at the midpoint of each line is considered.
All of the CT ratios are 500:1 and the minimum operating times
TABLE IX are 0.2 s. The remaining data of this test system can be found
COMPARISON WITH OTHER PAPERS FOR TEST CASE 3 in [22].
It can be obviously seen from Tables X and XI that BBO and
BBO-LP outperform GA and GA-NLP. In addition, the pro-
posed algorithms give optimized feasible solutions and require
fewer populations. This can be graphically illustrated in Fig. 8
for 100 trials of simulation runs.

settle on the near optimal solution, which is very fast as shown E. Test Case 5: 42-Bus System
in the fitness curves of Fig. 6. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed BBO-LP algo-
As mentioned in Section IV, the highly constrained network rithm, its performance has to be evaluated on a larger system.
with a limited number of discretized PS cannot be solved easily The 42-bus IEEE Standard 399-1997 system [41] is selected

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1818
TABLE XII
PERFORMANCE COMPARISON BETWEEN BBOS WITH DIFFERENT SUBALGORITHMS
CASE B: 40 250 AND CASE C:
Fig. 8. Best obtained solutions through 100 trials, test case 4.
for this task. The system is protected using 97 directional and
nondirectional OCRs. This means that the optimization algo-
rithm will deal with a highly constrained problem that consists
of 194 variables ( OCRs) and 114 selectivity constraints
if only IDMT TCCC is considered for all of the relays. More-
over, the complexity of this problem can be further increased
by expanding its dimension when different TCCCs are consid-
ered. Since each TCCC has three variables according
to (2), and each OCR requires two variable settings (TMS, PS),
the total number of variables of this system will increase to 485
( OCRs). For this scenario, all of the standard TCCCs [2],
[24], [25] are considered.
The proposed algorithm is evaluated with three different pop-
ulation sizes and number of generations, which are indicated in
Table XII as cases A, B, and C. In addition, three structures of
the proposed algorithm are evaluated; namely, the BBO without
feasibility checker (FC) and LP, BBO with only FC, and BBO
with FC and LP.
The results reveal that the BBO without any sub-algorithm
does not show any feasible solution. It can be noted that
these violations increased when the number of generations
and population size decrease as well as when the problem
dimension increases. It can be also observed that when the FC
subalgorithm is enabled, the violations are eliminated for all
of the simulated scenarios. However, the addition of the FC
subalgorithm resulted in more CPU time compared to the BBO
without FC. Moreover, when the BBO algorithm is hybridized
with the FC and LP subalgorithms, the solution quality is
significantly enhanced. Although extra CPU time is required if
it is initialized with similar parameters as in other BBOs, the
proposed BBO-LP achieved the best solutions even with the
lowest parameters (that is, case A for both scenarios). It can
also be observed that as the system size and the optimization
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, AUGUST 2015
FOR TEST CASE 5. (CASE A: 20 AND 40,
60 AND 1000)
variables increase, higher population and generations are re-
quired to achieve better solution quality. However, the BBO-LP
algorithm requires much lower parameters compared with the
conventional EAs.
F. Further Discussions
The proposed modifications on the original form of BBO
have enhanced their performance and satisfied all of the design
criteria, such as the feasibility, optimality, simplicity, and pro-
cessing speed. The proposed hybrid BBO-LP achieved better
performance compared with the other proposed algorithms in
the literature, such as Seeker, PSO, MPSO, MDE, TLBO, GA,
GA-LP, and GA-NLP.
Each optimization algorithm has some disadvantages. As a
common problem with the hybrid algorithms, BBO-LP will be-
come a slow algorithm if it is initialized with a similar number of
populations and generations as the nonhybrid algorithms. How-
ever, BBO-LP does not require high values of initialization pa-
rameters (such as the number of generations), as was shown pre-
viously in Fig. 6.
This study focused on how to solve the optimal coordination
of DOCRs for fixed configuration networks. Practically, there is
no system that can operate continuously on a steady-state con-
dition, because the status of the available elements of the gen-
eration, transmission, and utilization parts can change at any
time. Therefore, when adaptive optimization is required for the
network with dynamic configurations, the optimality and online
processing speed are very important factors that should be con-
sidered in the field of power system protection.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
The BBO and BBO-LP algorithms are proposed in this
paper to solve the optimal coordination of DOCRs. The results
show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms compared to
various EAs, such as the Seeker, PSO, MPSO, MDE, TLBO,
GA, GA-LP, and GA-NLP algorithms. The new embedded pre-
processing unit in both BBO versions solved the infeasibility
problem and achieved feasible solutions within few iterations.
In addition, the effect of the constraint-handling technique on
the solution quality, speed, and simplicity has been extensively
covered and it was found that the binary static exterior penalty
function can compromise between these criteria. Moreover,
the hybridization proves that the required number of popula-
tions and generations has significantly decreased with better
optimized fitness and required lower CPU time. Thus, the
proposed hybrid BBO-LP algorithm can be considered in the
development of future adaptive optimal coordination software.
ALBASRI et al.: OPTIMAL COORDINATION OF DIRECTIONAL OVERCURRENT RELAYS
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Fadhel A. Albasri (M’95) received the B.Sc. and
M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Bahrain, Bahrain, in 1992 and 1997,
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from the University of Western Ontario,
Canada, in 2007.
He was an Electrical Engineer with the Ministry of
Electricity and Water, Bahrain, from 1993 to 1994.
In 1994, he joined the University of Bahrain as a
Teaching and Research Assistant and is currently an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical
Engineering. His research interests are power systems protection, power
systems analysis, and flexible ac transmission systems devices.
1820
Ali R. Alroomi (M’13) received the B.Sc. degree
in process instrumentation and control engineering
from the University of Bahrain, Bahrain, in 2006.
After he received the B.Sc. degree, he was a
Project Engineer with Moore Control & Engineering
“MCE Middle East” until the middle of 2007, when
he joined Yokogawa Middle East as a DCS Subsys-
tems Engineer. From 2008 to 2012, he worked in
Aluminum Bahrain “ALBA” as an Instrumentation
and Control Engineer in its power plants, covering
the generation and auxiliary maintenance sections.
From 2009 to 2014, he covered the required electrical courses of the B.Sc.
program in electrical engineering, followed by the M.Sc. degree from the
same department. Currently, he is an Instrumentation, Control and Electrical
Protection Engineer with Bahrain Electricity and Water Authority (Riffa Power
Station). His research interests are evolutionary computation as well as power
systems operation and protection.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, AUGUST 2015
Jawad H. Talaq (M’93) received the B.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering from the University of Tech-
nology, Baghdad, Iraq, in 1981, the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering from the University of Strath-
clyde, Glasgow, U.K., in 1987, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from Technical University
of Nova Scotia, Halifax, NS, Canada, in 1993.
He worked in Ministry of Electricity and Water,
Bahrain, as a Graduate Engineer with Riffa Power
Station from 1981 to 1985, and as a Shift Charge En-
gineer from 1985 to 1989, when he moved from the
industrial field to the academic field. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in
the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Bahrain. His teaching
covers power systems operation and control, power systems dynamics, and ad-
vanced power systems analysis. His research topics include power systems op-
eration, control and dynamics, and applied soft computing.