In this paper, a novel bacterial foraging algorithm (BFA) based approach for robust and optimal design of PID controller connected to power system stabilizer (PSS) is proposed for damping low frequency power oscillations of a single machine infinite bus bar (SMIB) power system. This paper attempts to optimize three parameters (Kp, Ki, Kd) of PID-PSS based on foraging behaviour of Escherichia coli bacteria in human intestine. The problem of robustly selecting the parameters of the power system stabilizer is converted to an optimization problem which is solved by a bacterial foraging algorithm with a carefully selected objective function. The eigenvalue analysis and the simulation results obtained for internal and external disturbances for a wide range of operating conditions show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed BFAPSS. Further, the time domain simulation results when compared with those obtained using conventional PSS and Genetic Algorithm (GA) based PSS show the superiority of the proposed design.

Harmonic minimisation in hybrid cascaded multilevel inverter involves complex nonlinear transcendental equation with multiple solutions. Hybrid cascaded multilevel can be implemented using reduced switch count when compared to traditional cascaded multilevel inverter topology. In this paper Biogeographical Based Optimisation (BBO) technique is applied to Hybrid multilevel inverter to determine the optimum switching angles with weighted total harmonic distortion (WTHD) as the objective function. Optimisation based on WTHD combines the advantage of both OMTHD (Optimal Minimisation of Total Harmonic Distortion) and SHE (Selective Harmonic Elimination) PWM. WTHD optimisation has the benefit of eliminating the specific lower order harmonics as in SHEPWM and minimisation of THD as in OMTHD. The simulation and experimental results for a 7 level multilevel inverter were presented. The results indicate that WTHD optimization provides both elimination of lower order harmonics and minimisation of Total Harmonic Distortion when compared to conventional OMTHD and SHE PWM. Experimental prototype of a seven level hybrid cascaded multilevel inverter is implemented to verify the simulation results.