Auto-Tuning PID Controller Based on Genetic Algorithm

The PID controller is widely used in industry and its tuning is always a concern for the plant stabilization. Several methods for auto-tuning the PID have been proposed over the years, however, the relay method is the most used even though this method may determine nonideal PID gains and cause some physical stress on the plant. Here is presented a proposal for an auto-tuning PID controller based on a genetic algorithm. Genetic algorithm is a well-known method that imitates the natural selection process in order to obtain approximate solutions to optimization problems. Here, the method is presented in underdamped plants with the hypothesis that any plant can be approximated to a second-order function. From the unit step response of the system, the maximum overshoot and peak time were used in the GA evolution to obtain optimal PID parameters. The system was tested with a set of parameters and compared to MATLAB PID tuner function. Using the rising time and the settling time of unit step response from the closed loop system as validation parameters, the GA presented better results than the MATLAB tuner for most cases