Application of Grey Wolf Optimizer for Optimization of

Fractional Order Controllers for a Non-Monotonic Phase

System

S. K. Verma1, S. K. Nagar2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU),
Varanasi-221005, U.P., India

Email:1santosh.rs.eee13@iitbhu.ac.in;2sknagar.eee@iitbhu.ac.in

Abstract. In this paper, an optimized fractional order proportional-integral

(FOPI), proportional-derivative (FOPD) and proportional-integral-derivative
(FOPID) controllers for controlling the non-monotonic phase DC-buck regula-
tor system has been presented. The parameters of controllers are optimized us-
ing a new meta-heuristic technique known as Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO). In-
tegral time absolute error (ITAE) has been taken as the fitness function for op-
timizing the parameters of the controller. Simulation results show that the FOPI
controller provides faster closed-loop performance and improves the robustness
of the system. Moreover, the FOPI controller also preserves the monotonic
phase behavior of the system within the desired bandwidth. The results have
validated by comparing the time domain as well as frequency domain character-
istics of the system with another technique in the literature.

Keywords: Fractional Order controller; Non-monotonic phase system; DC-

buck regulator; Grey Wolf Optimizer; Integral time absolute error (ITAE);
Nelder’s Mead optimizer.

1 Introduction

Fractional calculus was first introduced by the mathematicians in the middle of the
ninetieth century[1]. Past decade is a witness of enhancement in research work related
to fractional calculus and its applications to control theory. Improving or optimizing
performance is the main task from an engineering point of view. Due to having an
extra degree of freedom, the fractional order controller successfully enhances the
performance of any system. The integral and the derivative term of the fractional
order controller are in fractions (PI D ) which increases the complexity of the con-
troller but make it more dominant than the conventional PID controllers[2]–[6]. It is
also shown in [5] that the two additional tuning knobs present in FOPID controller are
very helpful to make a balance between settling time and maximum overshoot of the
system. The FOPID controller has already been used in many control application in
the literature [4], [7]–[11]. Toolbars (like CRONE, NINTEGER and FOMCON, etc.)
are also present in MATLAB for working with fractional order system and fractional
2

controller design [12], [13]. Among these, CRONE is the most powerful toolbar
which is used for simulating the fractional order systems while others (NINTEGER
and FOMCON) are motivated by the CRONE Toolbox. Moreover, many optimization
techniques have been installed in the toolboxes for designing optimum controller. For
example, Nelder’s-Mead optimization (NMO) algorithm, Interior-point method, Se-
quential quadratic programming (SQP), and Active set based method are present in
FOMCON toolbox for finding the best result of FOPID controller.
In classical feedback control design, the frequency response compensation of a
continuous-time linear time-invariant (LTI) system is done by applying a negative
feedback control system. While the calculation of the phase margin of a closed-loop
system having monotonically decreasing phase within the bandwidth is done by the
distance between the open-loop phase at the gain crossover frequency and the stability
limit of 180 . In addition to this, the system having a zero in left half-plane located
near the dominant-poles (i.e., minimum-phase system) shows non-monotonic phase
actions within the bandwidth [14]. For a closed loop system to be stable, the gain
margin and phase margin must be positive. Also, the phase margin of a closed-loop
system also estimates the robustness of the system and shows the variation in phase of
the open-loop system while the closed-loop system remains stable [15]. DC-buck
regulator taken for this work also shows the non-monotonic phase action within the
bandwidth. Hence a controller is needed to overcome the non-monotonic phase action
of the system and also to get the wider bandwidth, faster time response. A monotonic
and non-monotonic phase analytical PID controller has been designed for DC-buck
regulator system using gain crossover frequency and phase margin specifications in
[14] which offer attractive improvements that are not achievable when the classical
monotonic design equations [16]. Further, an FOPI controller in the time domain had
also be designed and implemented in [17] which gives better result in compared with
the previous techniques discussed. Here the parameters of FOPI controller have been
optimized using Nelder’s-Mead (NM-FOPI) optimization technique.
In this paper, fractional order FOPI controller has been designed using Grey Wolf
Optimizer. The parameters of FOPI controller are firstly chosen using conventional
Ziegler–Nichols (ZN) technique and then optimized using grey wolf optimizer. The
fractional order terms of the controller are approximated into integer order using
Oustaloup’s approximation algorithm within a frequency range of
  (103  108 ) rad/ sec. [18], [19]. This controller preserves the monotonic phase
between the required bandwidth and improves the time domain as well as frequency
domain performance of the system.
Rest of this paper has been organized as follows: In Sec. 2 introduction of fraction-
al calculus and the fractional controller has been given. Section 3 presents circuit
diagram and non- monotonically decreasing phase behavior of DC-buck regulator
system. Section 4 shows the simulation results and comparative study of FOPI and
techniques present in the literature. Finally, the conclusion followed by the references.
 3

2 Introduction of Fractional Calculus and Fractional controller

History of fractional calculus is more than 300 years old. It was first introduced by
two scientists Leibniz and L’Hˆopital in terms of the half-order derivative in 1695 [1].
They generalized the representation of differentiation and integration as  Dtr where α
and t are the limits of the operation.
2.1 The definition of integro-differential operator
The definition of integro-differential operator in the continuous domain is given as:
 r
d r R (r )  0
r  dt
 Dt
 1 R (r )  0 (1)
t r
 ( dt ) R(r )  0

where r is the order of integration or differentiation, the order r can be both real
and complex number see in Chen et al. (2004).The differ-integral for fractional order
systems are given by two authors Grunwald-Letnikov (GL) and Riemann-Liouville
(RL) as presented in [5], [15].
 The Grunwald-Letnikov (GL) definition:
 t  
 
 h 
r r
 D t
f (t )  lim h r  (1) j
  f (t  jh), (2)
h0 j 0  j
where [.] means the integer part.
 The Riemann-Liouville (RL) definition:
t
r 1 dn f ( ) (3)
D f (t )   d ,
 t
 ( n  r ) dt n  (t   )
r  n 1

where ( n  1  r  n) and Г(.) is the Gamma function.

As we know, the Laplace transform technique is generally used for solving the
engineering problems. The Laplace transform procedure for RL fractional derivative
(3) is given in [20]:
 n 1
 st r r  k 1
e 0 D t
f (t )dt  s r F ( s)   s k 0 D t
f (t ) t  0 (4)
0 k 0

The properties of non-integer order calculus motivate the researchers for designing
and implementation of fractional order controllers for various systems [17].

2.1. Fractional Order PID Controller

FOPID controller is the generalized form of conventional PID controller and repre-
sented as PI D [6]. The transfer function for the FOPID controller is given as:
K
CFOPID  K P  I  K D s  ,   0 (5)
s
4

where for λ and μ are the fractional power of integral and differential control rre-
spectively. All the classical controllers can be realized with a different set of values of
λ and µ in FOPID controller which is shown below.
 KI 
   1,   1; P ID controller ; C FO PID  K P  s   K D s

 K
   1,   0; P
PII controller ; C FO PI  K P  I (6)
 s
   0,   1; P D controller ; C FOPD  K P  K D s 


This can also be realized in a two-dimensional plan as given below in Fig.1.

Fig.1. The plane of FOPID controller

As it is mentioned earlier, parameters of the FOPI controller  K P , K I and   are

optimized by GWO algorithm. It is a new meta-heuristic
heuristic algorithm based on Grey
wolves of the Canidae family [21]. The interesting thing about the grey wolves is that
they share the social hierarchy which claimed by the dominating behavior of the wolf.
The apex of the hierarchy is the most dominating level, and the boss of this level is
known as alpha (α).The
.The next stage ((i.e., Second level) of the hierarchyy is known as
beta (β), which assists αinin the hunting process. The third level which is denoted as
delta (δ) wolf,, perform as a subordinate. Rest of the wolves in the hierarchy are the
camp followers and denoted as omega(ω)
omega and have been kept in the last level off the
hierarchy as shown in Fig.2. The detail mathematical modeling of hunting process of
wolves has been shown in [22]–[25].
Fractional terms of the FOPI controller is approximated to integer order transfer
function. Various approximation techniques have also been developed in the literat
literature
[17], [26]. The most profici
proficient Oustaloup’s approximation algorithm has been used
for this work.
 5

Fig. 2. Hierarchy level of grey wolves

2.2. Oustaloup’s Approximation Algorithm

This is a well-known technique to approximate the fractional power terms into
an integer order transfer function within a required band of frequency [27]. This is
done by the recursive distribution of poles and zeros. The approximated version of a
fractional order differentiator s can be written as:
N
1  s  'k
G I ( s )  (C 0 )   1 s  (7)
k  N k
1  1 
kN  kN 
2 2 2 2
  2 N 1   2 N 1
where k '  b  b  and k  b  b  represents the zeros and
 u   u 
poles of rank k respectively and the sum of zeros or poles are (2 N  1) and

C0 
b u
u  h is the gain adjustment factor. The approximation is valid in the
frequency range [b ; h ] .

3 DC-Buck Regulator System

The DC-buck regulator is the frequently used dc-dc converter topology. It also has
vast application area like in microprocessor voltage regulator applications and power
management [14]. The DC-buck regulators are a smaller in size and more efficiency
compared to the linear regulators. A simplest dc-dc converter circuit i.e. the DC-buck
regulator circuit has been chosen for this work.
A DC-buck regulator circuit is a combination of a power stage (i.e., an LC low-
pass filter) and a pulse-width modulation (PWM)-based controller [1], [17]. The
schematic circuit diagram of the DC-buck converter with voltage controller is shown
below in Fig. 3.
6

Fig. 3. The circuit diagram of DC-Buck Converter with a voltage controller.

The transfer function of DC-buck regulator system can be calculated as the ratio of
Laplace transform of the output (regulated voltage) to the Laplace transform of the
input (PWM modulator input voltage) and given as:
Vin (1  sRC C )
G (8)
L
VOSC LCs 2  s ( RC C  )  1
R
where C, L, and R represents the output capacitance, output Inductance, and load
resistance respectively. RC is the intrinsic resistance of output capacitor, Vin represents
the input voltage of power stage and VOSC represents the reference voltage of PWM
oscillator. In a particular application of DC-buck regulator taken in [14] with
RC  40m , the transfer function is given as:

4(1  1.2  10 5 s)
G (9)
3  10 9 s 2  3.6  10 5 s  1
The performance of DC-buck regulator system has been discussed in the next sub-
section.

4 Simulation Results

4.1 Analysis of DC-buck regulator system without Controller:

The frequency response of the DC-buck regulator is shown in Fig. 4, which clearly
shows the non-monotonic phase action of gain and phase both. The closed-loop step
response without any controller is also shown in Fig. 5, which shows that the system
is under-damped and settled at 0.8 value only i.e., the closed-loop system without any
 7

controller show at study-error of 0.2. Hence the both the frequency response and step
response both encourage use to design a controller for better performance of the sys-
tem. Here, an optimum FOPI controller designed for this purpose has been discussed
in the next subsection.

Fig.4. Step response of closed-loop DC-buck regulator without a controller.

Fig. 5. Bode plot of DC-buck regulator system without a controller.

8

4.2 Design of proposed controllers for DC-buck regulator system

In this paper, optimum FOPI, FOPD, and FOPID controllers have been designed to
enhance both the time-domain as well as the frequency domain performance of the
DC-buck regulator. Values of K P , K I , K D ,  and  are corresponding to the minimum
values of fitness function in GWO algorithm is considered as the optimum value of
the parameters of the particular controller. The performance of the DC-buck regulator
system with all three controllers has been estimated and compared to find the best
controller for the system. Fitness function taken for this optimization is discussed in
the next subsection.

4.3 Defining the Fitness function:

The performance criterion considered for optimization of the controller parameters
is ITSE. The objective function is given by the following equation:

J ITSE   t.e2 (t )dt (10)
0

where e is the error of the system and t is the time period.

Fig.6. Step response of closed-loop DC-buck regulator with GWO-FOPI controller.

 9

Fig.7. Bode plot DC-buck regulator with GWO-FOPI controller.

4.4 Numerical results:

Performance of GWO-FOPI controller: The parameter of the FOPI controller ob-
tained using GWO are K P  2125, K I  25, K D  0,   0.24and   0 .The step re-
sponse and bode plot of the system with this controller have been shown in Fig. 6 and
Fig. 7 respectively.

Performance of GWO-FOPD controller: The parameters of this controller found by

GWO are K P  341, K I  0, K D  1.619,   0and   0.19 . The step response and
bode plot of the system with this controller have been shown in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 re-
spectively.
10

Fig.8. Step response of closed-loop DC-buck regulator with GWO-FOPD controller.

Fig.9. Bode plot DC-buck regulator with GWO-FOPD controller.

 11

Performance of GWO-FOPID controller: The parameters of the FOPID controller

obtained using GWO are K P  581.35, K I  0.089, K D  2.619,   0.78and   0.19 .
The step response and bode plot of the system with this controller have been shown in
Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 respectively.

Fig.10. Step response of closed-loop DC-buck regulator with GWO-FOPID controller.

12

Fig.11. Bode plot DC-buck regulator with GWO-FOPID controller.

Analysis and Comparison of all the three proposed fractional Controllers: As it is

clear from Table 1, the GWO-FOPI controller has minimum rise-time and settling-
time among all the proposed GWO based and NM-FOPI controllers. The GWO-
FOPD shows the slowest performance among all. Moreover, in the frequency domain,
the NM-FOPI controller shows a variable gain and phase behavior in the frequency
range of (104  101 ) rad/ s as shown in Fig. 13. Hence, GWO-FOPI controller is best
for DC-buck regulator system both in time-domain as well as frequency domain. The
effectiveness of the controller is compared with the help of their closed-loop step
responses and open-loop Bode-Plots in Fig. 12 and Fig. 13 respectively. All the re-
sults have also been compared in Table 1.
 13

Fig. 12. Step response comparison of DC-buck regulator with each of the proposed controller
and NM-FOPI Controller

Fig. 13. Bode plots Comparison of the DC-buck regulator with each of the proposed controller
and NM-FOPI Controller.
 14

Table 1: Comparison of Performance characteristics of all fractional order controllers

Control Closed-loop System Open-loop System

Techniques Rise time (s) Settling time (s) Peak Over- Study-state Gain Phase
shoot (%) Value Margin Margin
GWO-FOPI 6.4142  10 8 1.1221  10 7 0.1136 1 ∞ 89.9
GWO-FOPD 1.842  10 4
2.2565  10 4 0.0012 1 ∞ 89.3
GWO-FOPID 2.2196  10 7 3.7459  10 7 0.6338 1 ∞ 89.6
NM-FOPI 7.2848  10 7 4.4142  10 6 2.2699 1 ∞ 88.5
No Controller 2.8388  10 5 2.6031  10 4 36.2644 0.8 ∞ 46.2

5 Conclusion

Optimum fractional order controllers are designed to control the output voltage of
the DC-buck regulator system. The controller’s parameters are optimized using GWO
technique. Oustaloup’s approximation algorithm is used for approximation of frac-
tional order terms into integer order. The performance of all GWO based proposed
controller is compared with each other and also with a pre-designed fractional con-
troller i.e. NM-FOPI. The GWO-FOPI controller shows best control performance for
DC-buck regulator system both in time-domain as well as frequency domain. It offers
enviable improvements in control action of DC-buck regulator system which is not
achievable when the other fractional order controllers are used. The performance of
GWO-FOPI is the best controller among all.

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