Third International Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering and Technology
Particle Swarm Optimisation Algorithm based PID Controller
H.M.Asifa
Department of Electrical Engineering
G.H.Raisoni College of engineering,Higna,
Nagpur, India
assi.asifa@gmail.com
Abstract— This Paper presents a particle swarm
optimization (PSO) method for determining the optimal
proportional-integral derivative (PID) controller
parameters to improve the step response of a third order
system. The step response of the given system is defined
in terms of peak overshoot, settling time and steady state
error. The simulation is done using MATLAB. The
result is compared with the performance of PID
controller tuned using conventional methods like Zeigler
Nichols, Tyreus Luyben and Internal model control. The
proposed PSO based PID controller has superior
features like easy implementation, stable convergence
characteristic and good computational efficiency.
Keywords-PID; PSO
I. INTRODUCTION
The PID controller is by far the most commonly used
controller strategy in the process control industry. Its
widespread use is attributed to its simple structure and
robust performance over a wide range of operating
conditions .
Fig 1:PID controller block
The variable e represents the tracking error which is the
difference between the desired input value and the actual
output. This error signal will be sent to the PID controller
and the controller computes both the derivative and the
integral of this error.The controller equation is given below
978-0-7695-4246-1/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICETET.2010.145
Dr S.R.Vaishnav
Department of Electrical Engineering
G.H.Raisoni College of Engineering,Higna,
Nagpur, India
srv992003@yahoo.co.in
This signal (u) will be sent to the plant, and the new output
will be obtained. This new output will be sent back to the
sensor again to find the new error signal . The controller
takes this new error signal and computes its derivative and
its integral again. This process goes on and on. The control
system performs poor in characteristics and even it becomes
unstable, if improper values of the controller tuning
constants are used. So it becomes necessary to tune the
controller parameters to achieve good control performance
with the proper choice of tuning constant.
In this paper, a PSO-based approach to optimally design a
PID controller for a third order system is proposed. This
paper has been organized as follows. In section II the third
order system is described and the step response without any
PID controller is shown. In section III the various methods
Zeigler Nichols(ZN), Tyreus Luyben(TL) and Internal
model control(IMC) and PSO is reviewed. Section IV
describes how PSO is used to design the PID controller
optimally for a third order system. A comparison between
the results obtained by the proposed method and the
classical methods like ZN, TL and IMC via simulation of
the system is presented in section V. The paper is concluded
in section VI.
I. PROLEM COSIDERED
The transfer function considered is a third order system
given by
1.5
Gp(s) = ņņņņņņņņņ
50s3 +43 s2+3s+1
The step response of the above system is shown in fig 2.
The various methods used to improve the system
performance is mentioned in section III. It can be observed
that the system has very high peak overshoot. The settling
time is very large and also the steady state error is 0.4.
A PID controller has to be designed such that it improves
the following time response parameters like peak overshoot
(Mp ),settling time(Ts) ,steady state error.( ess).
628
 1.4
Step Response
1.2
1
0.8
Amplitude
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Time (sec)
120
Fig 2 :Step response without PID controller
II. TUNING METHODS
The first method used is the classical tuning rules
proposed by Ziegler and Nichols(ZN). The earliest known
and most popular tuning methodology was proposed by
Ziegler and Nichols [10] in 1942. They proposed the closed-
loop (or ultimate sensitivity) method and the open-loop (or
process reaction curve) method. The closed-loop tuning
method proposed by ZN requires the determination of the
ultimate gain and ultimate period. This can be achieved by
adjusting the controller gain till the system undergoes
sustained oscillations (at the ultimate gain or critical gain),
whilst maintaining the integral time constant at infinity and
the derivative time constant at zero
The Ziegler-Nichols tuning method is based on the
determination of processes inherent characteristics such as
the process gain , process time constant and process dead
time . These characteristics are used to determine the
controller tuning parameters.
Tyreus Luyben(T-L) is a modified form of the above
method. The ZN tunings were derived to give decay ratio of
1/4.This is too aggressive for most process control systems,
where oscillations and overshoot is usually not desired at
all. This led Tyreus and Luyben [10] to recommend the
following PID-rules for more conservative loops The first
step in the procedure is to generate sustained oscillations
with a P-controller, and from this obtain the “ultimate” gain
and corresponding “ultimate” period .
Another classical method is Internal model control
(IMC).There are several versions of IMC-PID. We consider
the one proposed by Riveria[10].It has a tuning parameter
called Ȝ The smaller the value the better performance the
closed loop system will have.
In 1995, Kennedy and Eberhart[4] first introduced the
Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method.. The features
of the method are as follows. The method is developed from
research on swarm such as fish schooling and bird flocking.
Instead of using evolutionary operators to manipulate the
particle(individual), like in other evolutionary
computational algorithms, each particle in PSO flies in the
search space with velocity which is dynamically adjusted
according to its own flying experience and its companions’
flying experience.. Each particle keeps track of its
coordinates in the problem space, which are associated with
the best solution (evaluating value) it has achieved so far.
This value is called pbest . Another best value that is tracked
140 160 180 200
by the global version of the particle swarm optimizer is the
overall best value, and its location, obtained so far by any
particle in the group, is called gbest.
IV DESIGN OF PID CONTROLLER
This paper presents a PSO based PID controller for
searching the optimal or near optimal controller parameters
Kd ,Kp and Ki. The Block diagram of the PSO based PID
controller is shown in Fig 3.
Fig 3 : Block diagram of the PSO based PID
Where Gc(s) = PID controller
The searching procedures of the proposed PSO-PID
controller were shown as below.
Step 1) Specify the lower and upper bounds of the three
controller parameters and initialize randomly the individuals
of the population including searching points,
velocities, Pbests and gbests.
Step 2) For each initial individual of the population,
calculate the values of the three performance criteria in the
time domain, namely Mp ,ts , and ess .
Step 3) Calculate the evaluation value of each individual in
the population using the evaluation function..
Step 4) Compare each individual’s evaluation value with its
Pbest.The best evaluation value among the Pbest is denoted
as gbest .
Step 5) Modify the member velocity of each individual
Step 6) Modify the member position of each individual
Step 8) If the number of iterations reaches the maximum,
then go to Step 9. Otherwise, go to Step 2.
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 Step 9) The individual that generates the latest gbest is an 0.61 respectively. The response obtained by IMC method is
optimal controller parameter. shown in fig 6
Step Response
1.4
V RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
1.2

On simulation the following results were obtained First the

1
system was tuned using Zeigler Nichlos. The values of Kp,
Ki and Kd obtained are 0.636, 0.04922, 1.029 respectively. 0.8

Amplitude
The following step response was obtained as shown in fig
4. 0.6

Step Response 0.4

1.4

0.2
1.2

1 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Time (sec)
0.8
Fig 6:Step response using IMC method
A m p litu d e

0.6

0.4
As seen in the above figure the settling time has reduced so
is the peak overshoot and steady state error is zero
0.2

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
The system is now simulated using PSO based PID
Time (sec) controller. The values of Kp, Ki and Kd obtained are, 3.26,
0.13, 13.61 respectively. The response is shown in fig 7.
Fig 4: Step response using ZN tuning. 1.4

As we can see that there is reduction in peak overshoot and 1.2

settling time.The steady state error is zero. But the response 1

is still sluggish. 0.8

amplitude

The system was again tuned using Tyreus Luyben method. 0.6

The values of Kp, Ki and Kd obtained are, 0.47,0.0083, 1.96 0.4

respectively. The following response was obtained as

shown in fig 5. 0.2

Step Response 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
t(sec)

1.2 Fig 7: Step response of PSO based PID

1
As seen from above figure the response has completely
0.8
improved .The peak overshoot has reduced, the settling time
Amplitude

has reduced and the steady state error is zero.The results

0.6
obtained from all the methods have been summarized in
0.4
Table 1.

0.2 Table1: Time response parameters obtained using various tuning methods

0 Tuning Methods Peak Settling time Steady state

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Time (sec) overshoot (Ts ) in sec error(ess)
(Mp)in %
Fig 5: Step response using TL tuning Without PID 94.1 3.85*10+3 0.4
Zeigler Nichols 28.3 421 0
As we can see the there is slight improvement compared to
the results obtained by the Zeigler Nichlos. But the response Tyreus Luyben - 451 0
has become quite distorted and the settling time has Internal Model 10.9 168 0
increased. control
The system was again tuned using Internal model control
PSO based PID 9.8 23 0
method. The values of Kp, Ki and Kd obtained 0.06, 0.09,

630
 VI CONCLUSION
From Table 1 it can be observed that all the
conventional methods of controller tuning lead to a large
settling time, overshoot,.All the four methods gave steady
state error as zero. PSO based tuning methods have proved
their excellence in giving better results by improving the
steady state error ,reduction in peak overshoot and settling
time characteristics.
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