Authors : D. Kavitha and P. Renuga
Abstract: Harmonics estimation is crucial in improving power quality. Effective mitigation of harmonics requires accurate estimation. There have been many research works that find intelligent solutions for minimizing the error index in harmonics estimation, thereby improving the accuracy. This study proposes a hybrid algorithm based on Differential Evolution (DE) and Least-Square (LS) method in which DE estimates the phases of the harmonics and LS estimates the amplitudes. Simulation results from MATLAB are presented to demonstrate that the estimation accuracy is greatly improved with the proposed algorithm when compared to evolutionary algorithms including Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimizer (PSO) and Bacterial Foraging Technique (BFT). The results confirm the capability of the proposed method in estimating power system integral harmonics and inter harmonics, even with the deviation of fundamental frequency. In addition to the simulation results, real time signals are acquired through an experimental setup using LABVIEW software and the algorithm is validated for practical signals. Results show that the method is effective with very low error index. Although, the selected area of application is power systems, the same algorithm can also be applied to other type of signals from communication channels, telephones and other encrypted signals.
D. Kavitha and P. Renuga, 2016. Power System Harmonics Estimation Using Differential Evolution. Asian Journal of Information Technology, 15: 1079-1089.