Multi-machine power system stabilizer design by using cultural algorithms

Conventional power system stabilizer (CPSS) has been widely used as a supplementary controller to damp out the low frequency oscillations. The tuning of CPSS parameters for nonlinear power systems in a robust way in order that the overall system stability can be improved is a major drawback of CPSS. Several meta-heuristic optimization techniques have been tried out to overcome this shortcoming. This paper presents a new technique named cultural algorithms (CAs) to tune the PSS parameters. This technique is robust and computationally efficient as compared with other meta-heuristic algorithms. Simulations are carried out on two typical multi-machine electric power systems. The results clearly verify that the proposed method improves the dynamic stability of the system, especially when the operating point changes. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.