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Optimal Control of DC Motors Using PSO

Algorithm for Tuning PID Controller
Arnisa Myrtellari
Polytechnic University of Tirana, [email protected]

Petrika Marango
Polytechnic University of Tirana, [email protected]

Margarita Gjonaj
Polytechnic University of Tirana, [email protected]

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Myrtellari, Arnisa; Marango, Petrika; and Gjonaj, Margarita, "Optimal Control of DC Motors Using PSO Algorithm for Tuning PID
Controller" (2015). UBT International Conference. 40.
https://knowledgecenter.ubt-uni.net/conference/2015/all-events/40

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International Conference on M echatronics Robotics and System Engineering, Nov 2015

Optimal Control of DC Motors Using PSO Algorithm for

Tuning PID Controller

Arnisa Myrtellari1 , Petrika Marango 2 , Margarita Gjonaj3

1,2,3 Polytechnic
University of Tirana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of
Automation, Sheshi Nënë Tereza, Tiranë, Albania
[email protected] , [email protected] , margarita [email protected]

Abstract. The DC motors are widely used in the mechanisms that require control of speed. Different
speed can be obtained by changing the field voltage and the armature voltage. The classic PID
controllers are widely used in industrial process for speed control. But they aren’t suitable for high
performance cases, because of the low robustness of PID controller. So many researchers have been
studying various new control techniques in order to improve the system performance and tuning PID
controllers. This paper presents particle swarm optimization (PSO) method for determining the
optimal PID controller parameters to find the optimal parameters of DC M otor speed control system.
The DC M otor system drive is modeled in M ATLAB/SIM ULINK and PSO algorithm is implemented
using M ATLAB toolbox. The results obtained through simulation show that the proposed controller
can perform an efficient search for the optimal PID controller. Simulation results show performance
improvement in time domain specifications for a step response (no overshoot, minimal rise time,
steady state error = 0).

Keywords: Speed control, DC M otor, Particle Swarm Optimization

1. Introduction
The electric motor drive is widely used in industries. A large proportion of electrical energy is
consumed by electric motors. Electric motors provide efficient, reliable, long-lasting service, and
most require comparatively little maintenance. Despite these advantages, however, they can be
inefficient and costly to operate if they are not properly selected and maintained. Industrial plants can
avoid unnecessary increases in energy consumption, maintenance, and costs, by selecting motors that
are well suited to their applications and making sure that they are well maintained. The high cost of
energy has placed a premium on finding ways to reduce the energy consumption by equipment and
systems in industrial applications. Presently, the energy saving is the interesting issue for the
engineers. In spite of the development of power electronics resources, the direct current machine
became more and more useful; the energy efficiency of its drive systems could be improved by
reducing the energy losses in the system and by improving the efficiency of the motors. DC motors
have long been the primary means of electrical traction. DC motor has at torque/speed characteristics
compatible with most mechanical load. Control of DC motor speed by conventional PID controllers
are well known and their objective is a good performance that include minimization of the steady state
error, minimization of rise time and minimization of settling time. Proportional-Integral-Derivative
(PID) controllers are a very efficient solution to obtain the desired output from the plant in steady
state as well for dynamic response. Two classical methods that are still utilized are the Ziegler-Nichols
and the Cohen-Coon which utilize analytical approaches for analysis and tuning PID parameters. A
technique that is used for tuning PID parameters which is based on Swarm Optimization is the Particle
Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique. A swarm consists of individuals called particles, each of which
represents a different possible set of the unknown parameters to be optimized. The “swarm” is
initialized with a population of random solutions. In a PSO particles fly about in a multi-dimensional
search space adjusting its position according to its own experience and the experience of its
neighboring particle. The goal is to efficiently search the solution space by swarming the particles
towards the best fitting solution encountered in previous iterations with the intention of encountering

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better solutions through the course of the process and eventually converging on a single minimum or
maximum solution. In this paper the optimal parameters of PID controller are proposed by using PSO
algorithm method. Iterative simulation results shows that the effectiveness of Particle Swarm
Optimization approach PSO since it allows the operator to find a near optimal good compromise
among the proposed goals, which is best trade-off lowest cost PID controller design.

2. Model of DC motor
DC motor is a power actuator which transforms electrical energy in to mechanical energy. DC motor
is widely used in many industrial applications where wide range of speed –torque characteristics
required. In this paper, the separated excited DC motor model is chosen according to his good
electrical and mechanical performances more than the other DC motor models. Fig.1 show the
equivalent circuit of DC motor with separate excitation.

Fig.1 Equivalent circuit of DC motor

The dynamic equations of DC motor are given as follow:

 d    b k 
 dt   J 0
J     
    1 u (1)
 di    k  R   i   
 dt   L L
L 

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International Conference on M echatronics Robotics and System Engineering, Nov 2015

The transfer function of DC motor is:

 s k
G ( s)   (2)
U s JLs  bLs  Rb  kkb
2

The parameters of the motor are shown in the Table.1:

Table.1 Parameter of DC motor

J M oment of Inertia of the Rotor( kg m2 ) 0.01

L M otor Electric Inductance( H) 0.5
R M otor Electric Resistance( Ω) 1
b Damping Ratio of M echanical System( N m s) 0.00003
k M otor Constant( Nm/A) 0.023
kb EM F constant (V sec) 0.023

3. PID controller
PID controllers have been at the heart of control engineering practice for seven decades. The
PID controllers have a wide range of applications in industrial control because of their simple control
structure. The PID controllers need of less plant information than a complete mathematical model.
The controller attempts to minimize the error by adjusting the process control input. The PID
controller calculation (algorithm) involves three constant parameters called the proportional (P),
integral (I), derivative (D) values, these value can be interpreted in terms of time. The transfer function
of PID controller is:
ki  1 
Gc  s   k p   kd s  k p  1  T d s (3)
s  Ti s 
The Ziegler-Nichols design methods are the most popular methods used in process control to
determine the parameters of a PID controller. The step response method is based on an open-loop step
response test of the process. The step response of the process is characterized by two parameters L
and T that are determined by drawing a tangent line at the inflexion point.

Fig.2
The intersections of the tangent and the coordinate axes give the process parameters as shown in Fig.2,
and these are used in calculating the controller parameters. The parameters for PID controllers
obtained from the Ziegler-Nichols step response method are shown in Table2.

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 International Conference on M echatronics Robotics and System Engineering, Nov 2015

Table 2 PID parameters.

Type of controller Kp Ti Td
P T/L ∞ 0
PI 0.9T/L L/0.3 0
PID 1.2T/L 2L 0.5L

4. Particle Swarm Optimization

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique, proposed by Kennedy and Eberhart is an evolutionary-
type global optimization technique developed due to the inspiration of social act ivities in flock of
birds and school of fish and is widely applied in various engineering problems due to its high
computational efficiency. It has been proved to be an effective optimum tool in system identification
and PID controller tuning for a class of processes. This techniques is used to minimize the maximum
overshoot, minimize the rise time, minimize speed tracking error, minimize the steady state error, and
minimize the settling time, optimization solution results are set of near optimal trade-off value which
are called the Pareto front or optimally surfaces. PSO is a robust stochastic optimization technique
based on the movement and intelligence of swarms. The components of PSO are Swarm Size,
Velocity, position components and maximum no of iteration. The structure of the PID controller with
PSO algorithm is shown in Fig.3.

Fig.3 The block diagram of proposed PID Controller with PSO algorithms

The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) model consists of a swarm of particles, which are initialized
with a population of random candidate solutions. They move iteratively through the d-dimension
problem space to search the new solutions. Each particle has a position represented by a position
vector X ki i
where (i is the index of the particle), and a velocity represented by a velocity vector Vk .
i
Each particle remembers its own best position Pbest . The best position vector among the swarm then
i
stored in a vector Pglobal . During the iteration time k, the update of the velocity from the previous
velocity to the new velocity is determined by :

Vki1  wVki  c1R1 ( Pbest

i
 X ki )  c2 R2 ( Pglobal
i
 X ki ) (4)

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International Conference on M echatronics Robotics and System Engineering, Nov 2015

The new position is then determined by the sum of the previous position and the new velocity:
X ki 1  X ki  Vki1 (5)

Where R1 and R2 are random numbers. A particle decides where to move next, considering its own
experience, which is the memory of its best past position, and the experience of the most successful
particle in the swarm.

5. Results
The transfer function using the parameter in Table.1of DC motor is:
 s 0.023
G (s)  
U s 0.005s  0.01002s  0.000559
2

The simulation procedure may be summarized as follows:

• First input the DC motor data,
• Write the differential equations for the model then get the state space representation
• Get the open loop transfer function and the closed loop step response
• Finally performing the performance of PID controller by Ziegler Nichols method and PID controller
by using PSO algorithm and compare the results.
The step response for open loop system and closed loop system is shown in Fig.4 and Fig.5.

Step Response
45

40

35

30

25
Amplitude

20

15

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time (seconds)

Fig.4 Step response for open loop system

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 International Conference on M echatronics Robotics and System Engineering, Nov 2015

Step Response
1.4

1.2

System: closed
Settling Time (seconds): 3.83
1

0.8
Amplitude

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Time (seconds)

Fig.5 Step response for closed loop system

The unit step response of the system based on Zeigler-Nichols tuning method is as shown in Fig.6.

PID step response

1.8

1.6
System: PIDsys
Time (seconds): 0.211
1.4
Amplitude: 1.62

1.2
System: PIDsys
Settling Time (seconds): 1.83
1
Amplitude

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Time (seconds)

Fig.6 Step response for closed loop system with PID controller

The unit step response of the system based on PSO algorithm for K p= 30.1256, K i= 2.5896 and K d =
10.1347 tuning method is as shown in Fig.7.

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International Conference on M echatronics Robotics and System Engineering, Nov 2015

PID-PSO step response

1.4

1.2

1
System: PID_PSOsys
Settling Time (seconds): 0.0723
0.8
Amplitude

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Time (seconds)

Fig.7 Step response for closed loop system with PID controller

Comparison of the step response for PID controllers

1.8
PIDsys
1.6 PID_PSOsys
closed
1.4

1.2

1
Speed

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Time (seconds)

Fig.8 Comparison of closed step response, Z-N PID step response and PSO-PID step
response

To show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, is made a comparison with designed of PID
controller using Ziegler-Nichols method and PSO algorithm method in table 3.

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Table.3 Comparison of the system

M ethod Settling time Overshoot (%) Rise time (sec) Steady state
(sec) (%)
Closed System 3.83 19.5 0.721 0
Z-N PID 1.83 62 0.0815 0
PSO-PID 0.0723 1.5 0.0451 0

Conclusion
PID controllers are a widespread control solution due to their simple architecture, generally acceptable
control performance and ease of use. In this work PID controller has been tuned using Ziegler-Nichols
method and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) through simulation of DC motor speed control
system. The performance of the PSO algorithm method of tuning a PID controller has been proved to
be better than traditional method Ziegler-Nichols method, in terms of the system overshoot, settling
time and rise time.

References
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for A Linear Brushless DC M otor", World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology,
2007.
3. Zwe-Lee Gaing, “A particle Swarm Optimization Approach for Optimum Design of PID
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Conversion, Vol.19, No.2, pp384-391, 2004.
4. B. Nagaraj And N. M urugananth "Soft Computing-Based Optimum Design of PID Controller
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