Alireza Nazmadini - Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University Kerman,
Hadi Zayandehroodi - Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University Kerman,
Hamed Akbari - Department of Electrical Engineering Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran

In this paper an evolutionary algorithm namely as Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) is employed for simultaneous coordinated tuning of damping controllers to damp the power system inter-area oscillations. ICA is a population-based optimization algorithm inspired by the socio-political process of imperialistic competition. To illustrate the feasibility of the proposed approach, the numerical results are presented on a 5-area 16-machine system. One power system stabilizer (PSS) and one supplementary controller are designed simultaneously for a generator and Static Var Compensator (SVC), respectively. To show the effectiveness of the designed controllers, a line-to-ground fault and three phase fault is applied at a bus. The simulation studies show that the designed controllers have good capability in damping the power systems low frequency oscillations

imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA); low frequency oscillations; PSS; SVC