Adaptive Rat Swarm Optimization for Optimum Tuning of SVC and PSS in a Power System

This paper presents a new approach for the coordinated design of a power system stabilizer- (PSS-) and static VAR compensator- (SVC-) based stabilizer. For this purpose, the design problem is considered as an optimization problem, while the decision variables are the controllers’ parameters. This paper proposes an effective optimization algorithm based on a rat swarm optimizer, namely, adaptive rat swarm optimization (ARSO), for solving complex optimization problems as well as coordinated design of controllers. In the proposed ARSO, instead of a random initial population, the algorithm starts the search process with fitter solutions using the concept of the opposite number. In addition, in each iteration of the optimization, the new algorithm replaces the worst solution with its opposite or a random part of the best solution to avoid getting trapped in local optima and increase the global search ability of the algorithm. The performance of the new ARSO is investigated using a set of benchmark test functions, and the results are compared with those of the standard RSO and some other methods from the literature. In addition, a case study from the literature is considered to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed ARSO for coordinated design of controllers in a power system. PSSs and additional SVC controllers are being considered to demonstrate the feasibility of the new technique. The numerical investigations show that the new approach may provide better optimal damping and outperform previous methods.