Design of an Optimal Fractional Complex Order PID Controller for Buck Converter

Abstract

Dynamic and robust controllers are the inherent requirement of power electronic converters, which are subjected to dynamic variations and nonlinearities. The effectiveness of fractional order controllers in non-linear system control has been well-established by studies in the past few decades. Various forms of fractional order controllers have been used in power-electronic control. Recent research indicates that complex order controllers, extensions of fractional controllers, are more robust against uncertainties and non-linearities than their integer and fractional order counterparts. Though complex order controllers have been employed in various nonlinear plants, they have not been extensively tested on power electronic applications. Also, the design and tuning of the controller is difficult. This paper investigates the effectiveness of a complex order PID controller on a typical power electronic DC-DC buck converter for the first time. Two types of complex order controllers of the form PI^{a+ib}D^c and PI^{a+ib}D^{c+id} were designed for a power electronic buck converter. The complex order controllers were implemented in Simulink and the optimal tuning of the complex order controller parameters for various performance indices was performed using different optimization algorithms. The Cohort Intelligence algorithm was found to give the most optimal results. Both the complex controllers showed more robustness towards uncertainties than the linear and fractional PID controllers. The PI^{a+ib}D^c controller gave the smoothest and fastest response under non-linearities. The dynamic performance of the complex order controller is the best and can be expected to be useful for more power electronic applications.