Improved Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm and Its Application in LQR Controller Optimization

In order to get the optimal performance of controller and improve the design efficiency, artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm as a metaheuristic approach which is inspired by the collective foraging behavior of honey bee swarms is considered for optimal linear quadratic regulator (LQR) design in this paper. Furthermore, for accelerating the convergence speed and enhancing the diversities of population of the traditional ABC algorithm, improved solution searching approach is proposed creatively. The proposed approach refers to the procedure of differential mutation in differential evolutionary (DE) algorithm and produces uniform distributed food sources in employed bee phase to avoid local optimal solution. Meanwhile, during the onlooker bees searching stage where the solution search area has been narrowed by employed bees, new solutions are generated around the solution with higher fitness value to keep the fitness values increasing monotonously. The improved ABC algorithm is applied to the optimization of LQR controller for the circular-rail double inverted pendulum system, and the simulation results show the effect on the proposed optimization problem.