Intelligent proportional-integral-derivate controller using metaheuristic approach via crow search algorithm for vibration suppression of flexible plate structure

Proportional-integral-derivate (PID) controller has gained popularity since the advancement of smart devices especially in suppressing the vibration on flexible structures using different approaches. Such structures required accurate and reliable responses to prevent system failures. Swarm intelligence algorithm (SIA) is one of the optimization methods based on nature that managed to solve real-world problems. Crow search is a well-known algorithm from the SIA group that can discover optimum solutions in both local and global searches by utilizing fewer tuning parameters compared to other methods. Hence, this study aimed to simulate a PID controller tuned by SIA via crow search for vibration cancellation of horizontal flexible plate structures. Prior to that, an accurate model structure is developed as a prerequisite for PID controller development. After the best model is achieved, the proportional-integral-derivative-crow-search (PID-CS) performance was compared to a traditional tuning approach known as the Ziegler Nichols (ZN) to validate its robustness. The result revealed the PID-CS outperformed the proportional-integral-derivative-Ziegler Nichols (PID-ZN) with attenuation values of 44.75 and 42.74 dB in the first mode of vibration for single sinusoidal and real disturbances, respectively. In addition, the value of mean squared error (MSE) for PID-ZN and PID-CS for single sinusoidal disturbance are 0.0167 and 0.0081, respectively. Meanwhile, PID-ZN and PID-CS achieved 2.3981 × 10 −4 and 2.3737 × 10 −4 when they were exerted with real disturbance. This proves that the PID-CS is more accurate compared to the PID-ZN as it achieved the lowest MSE value.