Induction motors tend to have better efficiency on rated conditions, but at partial load conditions, when these motors operate on rated flux, they exhibit lower efficiency. In such conditions, when these motors operate for a long duration, a lot of electricity gets consumed by the motors, due to which the computational cost as well as the total running cost of industrial plant increases. Squirrel-cage induction motors are widely used in industries due to their low cost, robustness, easy maintenance, and good power/mass relation all through their life cycle. A significant amount of electrical energy is consumed due to the large count of operational units worldwide; hence, even an enhancement in minute efficiency can direct considerable contributions within revenue saving, global electricity consumption, and other environmental facts. In order to improve the efficiency of induction motors, this research paper presents a novel contribution to maximizing the efficiency of induction motors. As such, a model of induction motor drive is taken, in which the proportional integral (PI) controller is tuned. The optimal tuning of gains of a PI controller such as proportional gain and integral gain is conducted. The tuning procedure in the controller is performed in such a condition that the efficiency of the induction motor should be maximum. Moreover, the optimization concept relies on the development of a new hybrid algorithm, the so-called Scrounger Strikes Levy-based dragonfly algorithm (SL-DA), that hybridizes the concept of dragonfly algorithm (DA) and group search optimization (GSO). The proposed algorithm is compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO) for verification. The analysis of efficiency, speed, torque, energy savings, and output power is validated, which confirms the superior performance of the suggested method over the comparative algorithms employed.
Keywords: PI controller; algorithm; dragonfly algorithm; group search optimizer; induction motor; meta-heuristic; optimization; particle swarm; speed control.