One of the most popular controllers for the automatic voltage regulator (AVR) in maintaining the voltage level of a synchronous generator is the fractional-order proportional–integral-derivative (FOPID) controller. Unfortunately, tuning the FOPID controller is challenging since there are five gains compared to the three gains of a conventional proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller. Therefore, this research work presents a variant of the marine predators algorithm (MPA) for tuning the FOPID controller of the AVR system. Here, two modifications are applied to the existing MPA: the hybridization between MPA and the safe experimentation dynamics algorithm (SEDA) in the updating mechanism to solve the local optima issue, and the introduction of a tunable step size adaptive coefficient (CF) to improve the searching capability. The effectiveness of the proposed method in tuning the FOPID controller of the AVR system was assessed in terms of the convergence curve of the objective function, the statistical analysis of the objective function, Wilcoxon’s rank test, the step response analysis, stability analyses, and robustness analyses where the AVR system was subjected to noise, disturbance, and parameter uncertainties. We have shown that our proposed controller has improved the AVR system’s transient response and also produced about two times better results for objective function compared with other recent metaheuristic optimization-tuned FOPID controllers.

A novel hybrid strategy combining a spiral dynamic algorithm (SDA) and a bacterial foraging algorithm (BFA) is presented in this article. A spiral model is incorporated into the chemotaxis of the BFA algorithm to enhance the capability of exploration and exploitation phases of both SDA and BFA with the aim to improve the fitness accuracy for the SDA and the convergence speed as well as the fitness accuracy for BFA. The proposed algorithm is tested with the Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2013 (CEC2013) benchmark functions, and its performance in terms of accuracy is compared with its predecessor algorithms. Consequently, for solving a complex engineering problem, the proposed algorithm is employed to obtain and optimise the fuzzy logic control parameters for the hub angle tracking of a flexible manipulator system. Analysis of the performance test with the benchmark functions shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms its predecessor algorithms with significant improvements and has a competitive performance compared to other well-known algorithms. In the context of solving a real-world problem, it is shown that the proposed algorithm achieves a faster convergence speed and a more accurate solution. Moreover, the time-domain response of the hub angle shows that the controller optimised by the proposed algorithm tracks the desired system response very well.