This study presents an intelligent metaheuristics-based design procedure for the Proportional-Integral (PI) controllers tuning in the direct power control scheme for 1.5 MW Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) based Wind Turbine (WT) systems. The PI controllers’ gains tuning is formulated as a constrained optimization problem under nonlinear and non-smooth operational constraints. Such a formulated tuning problem is efficiently solved by means of the proposed Thermal Exchange Optimization (TEO) algorithm. To evaluate the effectiveness of the introduced TEO metaheuristic, an empirical comparison study with the homologous particle swarm optimization, genetic algorithm, harmony search algorithm, water cycle algorithm, and grasshopper optimization algorithm is achieved. The proposed TEO algorithm is ensured to perform several desired operational characteristics of DFIG for the active/reactive power and DC-link voltage simultaneously. This is performed by solving a multi‐objective function optimization problem through a weighted‐sum approach. The proposed control strategy is investigated in MATLAB/environment and the results proved the capabilities of the proposed control system in tracking and control under different scenarios. Moreover, a statistical analysis using non-parametric Friedman and Bonferroni–Dunn’s tests demonstrates that the TEO algorithm gives very competitive results in solving global optimization problems in comparison to the other reported metaheuristic algorithms.

A second-order sliding mode (SOSM)-based direct power control (DPC) of a doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) is introduced in this research paper. Firstly, the DFIG output powers are regulated with the developed SOSM controller-based DPC scheme. The Super Twisting Algorithm (STA) has been used to reduce the chattering phenomenon. The proposed strategy is a combination of the Lyapunov theory and metaheuristics algorithms, which has been considered to identify the optimal gains of the STA-SOSM controllers. The Lyapunov function method is employed to define the stability regions of the controller parameters. On the other hand, the metaheuristics algorithms are mainly employed to select the fine controllers’ parameters from the predefined ranges. A Thermal Exchange Optimization (TEO) method is used to compute the optimal gain parameters. To prove the superiority of the proposed TEO, its obtained results have been compared with those obtained by other algorithms, including particle swarm optimization, genetic algorithm, water cycle algorithm, grasshopper optimization algorithm and harmony search algorithm. Moreover, the results of the introduced TEO-based SOSM controller have been also compared with the Proportional-Integral (PI)-based vector control and the conventional sliding mode control-based DPC. Moreover, an empirical comparison is carried out to investigate the indication of every metaheuristics method by employing Friedman’s rank and Bonferroni tests. The main findings indicate the effectiveness of STA-SOSM control for system stability and power quality improvement. The ripples in the active and reactive powers are minimized and the harmonics’ distortions of stator and rotor currents are improved. Besides, the STA-SOSM controller shows a superior performance of control in terms of chattering phenomenon elimination.

This paper presents an enhancement method to improve the performance of the DC-link voltage loop regulation in a Doubly-Fed Induction Generator (DFIG)- based wind energy converter. An intelligent, combined control approach based on a metaheuristics-tuned Second-Order Sliding Mode (SOSM) controller and an adaptive fuzzy-scheduled Extended State Observer (ESO) is proposed and successfully applied. The proposed fuzzy gains-scheduling mechanism is performed to adaptively tune and update the bandwidth of the ESO while disturbances occur. Besides common time-domain performance indexes, bounded limitations on the effective parameters of the designed Super Twisting (STA)-based SOSM controllers are set thanks to the Lyapunov theory and used as nonlinear constraints for the formulated hard optimization control problem. A set of advanced metaheuristics, such as Thermal Exchange Optimization (TEO), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic Algorithm (GA), Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA), Water Cycle Algorithm (WCA), and Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA), is considered to solve the constrained optimization problem. Demonstrative simulation results are carried out to show the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme in terms of grid disturbances rejection, closed-loop tracking performance, and robustness against the chattering phenomenon. Several comparisons to our related works, i.e., approaches based on TEO-tuned PI controller, TEO-tuned STA-SOSM controller, and STA-SOSM controller-based linear observer, are presented and discussed.

Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are equipment for transforming thermal power into electricity via the Seebeck effect. These modules have gained increasing interest in research fields related to sustainable energy. The harvested energy is mostly reliant on the differential temperature between the hot and cold areas of the TEGs. Hence, a reliable maximum power point tracker is necessary to operate TEGs too close to their maximum power point (MPP) under an operational and climate variation. In this paper, an optimized fractional incremental resistance tracker (OF-INRT) is suggested to enhance the output performance of a TEG. The introduced tracker is based on the fractional-order PIλDμ control concepts. The optimal parameters of the OF-INRT are determined using a population-based sine cosine algorithm (SCA). To confirm the optimality of the introduced SCA, experiments were conducted and the results compared with those of particle swarm optimization- (PSO) and whale optimization algorithm (WOA) -based techniques. The key goal of the suggested OF-INRT is to overcome the two main issues in conventional trackers, i.e., the slow dynamics of traditional incremental resistance trackers (INRT) and the high steady-state fluctuation around the MPP in the prevalent perturb and observe trackers (POTs). The main findings prove the superiority of the OF-INRT in comparison with the INRT and POT, for both dynamic and steady-state responses.