2DOF PID Controller Design for a Class of FOPTD Models – An Analysis with Heuristic Algorithms

In recent years, a number of controller design procedures are developed and implemented in process industries to enhance the performance of closed loop processes. In this paper, heuristic algorithm based Two Degrees Of Freedom (2DOF) PID controller design is proposed for a class of First Order Plus Time Delay (FOPTD) systems existing in the literature. Minimization of the weighted sum of multiple objective functions is considered to monitor the heuristic search towards the optimal controller parameters. A detailed comparative analysis between well known heuristic methods, such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFO), Cuckoo Search (CS) and Firefly Algorithm (FA) are presented. The popular 2DOF PID structures, such as Feed Back Structure (FBS) and Feed Forward Structure (FFS) are considered in this work to enhance the performance of FOPTD systems. From the results, it is noted that, proposed controller provides enhanced results for the reference tracking and disturbance rejection operations.