Coordinated Design of FACTS Controller with PSS for Stability Enhancement Using a Novel Hybrid Whale Optimization Algorithm – Nelder Mead Approach

This article investigates a novel cascaded fractional order PI-PD structure for power system stabilizers and flexible AC transmission system-based damping controllers to enhance the stability of the power system. The proposed controller parameters are optimized by a hybrid Modified Whale Optimization Algorithm (MWOA) with the Nelder-Mead algorithm. The novel hybrid algorithm accomplishes a proper balance between the exploration and exploitation phases of the modified whale optimization algorithm. This capability of the hybrid technique is certified by using the benchmark test functions compared with that of an MWOA, WOA, gravitational search algorithm, fast evolutionary programming, particle swarm optimization, genetic algorithm, and differential evolution. The proposed controller is optimized and verified under various loading conditions using a hybrid technique. Furthermore, to demonstrate its superiority, the results of the proposed hybrid algorithm are compared with recently published MWOA, WOA, and well-established genetic algorithms.