Optimal control of DC motor using leader-based Harris Hawks optimization algorithm

Direct Current (DC) motor is considered a very critical component of various industrial drive equipment. This is due to their unique advantages including reasonable cost, speed-torque characteristics, ease of control, etc. While most DC motor drive applications often employ PID controllers to regulate the speed of the machine, selecting the optimal design parameters for the controllers used in these applications often posed a serious challenge. Moreover, as the complexity of the industrial process increases, the need for precise speed and position tracking becomes necessary. This current study proposes a novel Leader-based Harris Hawks Optimization (LHHO) algorithm for the design of Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) and Fractional Order Proportional-Integral-Derivative (FOPID) controllers to achieve optimal speed regulation of DC motors. The LHHO algorithm is an innovative meta-heuristic algorithm that draw inspiration from the cooperative hunting behavior and leadership prowess of the Harris Hawks called the “seven pounds”. While several error functions were tested in this study, the integral of time multiplied absolute error (ITAE) has been adopted as the error function for obtaining the parameters of PID and FOPID controllers using the LHHO algorithm. Through quantitative evaluations and comparisons with existing techniques, the proposed controllers (LHHO-PID and LHHO-FOPID) have revealed significant improvements in key performance metrics, including rise time, settling time, and maximum overshoot during transient periods when ITAE is used as the error function. Furthermore, the stability response and robustness analyses were carried out by varying the parameters of the DC motor under eight scenarios, which confirmed competitive performance in system response and transient behavior.