The University of Lahore

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL

M.Sc. Thesis Synopsis

Electric Power System optimization using a hybrid Model of

Artificial Bee Colony and Sensory-Deprived Optimization
Algorithms

Research Candidate

Muhammad Ali Shujaat

Registration Number

MSEES01123023

Status

Part Time

Supervisor

Hafiz Tehzeeb-ul- Hassan

Cell Number

0300-4941520

E-mail

ali_shujaat@live.com

Dated

August 22, 2016

Abstract:
World is changing everyday and so is its consumption of electricity with the increase in
population and industries the power utilities are struggling for optimal economic operation. In
power system operation and control economic dispatch holds a prominent place and its is one of
the hottest topics for researchers as there is always room for improvement and new heuristic
techniques.
In this research work an efficient methodology for power system optimization and control shall
be presented. In every heuristic technique two very important processes interact with each other
these processes are exploitation and exploration. Every heuristic technique exploits a search
space and then this space is explored for an optimal solution.

The proposed methodology utilizes and combines artificial bee colony and sensory deprived
algorithms. The artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is a very successful and simple algorithm
it is population bases which is inspired by the foraging behaviors of honey bees. Sensory
Deprived algorithm has been introduced by observing the survival instincts and intelligent
behavior of blind human being.

Introduction and Objectives

The main objective of this thesis is to achieve a practical algorithm for economic operation of
electric power systems.
We know that conventional methods are not so successful in solving complex economic dispatch
problems and they run into local extrema plus these solutions are time consuming. To avoid the
time delay the heuristic techniques were introduced and their popularity in economic dispatch
problems represent that they are successful and an easy solution.
Main objective of this thesis is to understand two techniques which are Artificial Bee Colony
Algorithm and Sensory Deprived Algorithm and turn them into one superior algorithm which has
the attributes of both of the algorithms.

The ABC algorithm is an unconventional optimization method which gained popularity in late
2005. The following graph shows the number of publications which includes ABC Algorithm
from 2005 to August 2016.

Number of Publications of Artificail Bee Colony Algorithim

4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0

Number of Publications

Inspired by the survival tactics of a sensory-deprived human being, a new heuristic optimization
algorithm was introduced in 2011. Although this is not so popular but it has promise of great
efficiency.
The sensory deprived optimization algorithms (SDOA) basic principle is to use exploration and
exploitation simultaneously which distinct this algorithm from other algorithms. Thus when both
combined we can get a superior algorithm which shall have the qualities of both Artificial Bee
Colony Algorithm and Sensory Deprived Optimization Algorithm. The results of this algorithm
shall be compared with the results of Particle Swamp Optimization, Genetic Algorithm and
Artificial Neural Network Algorithms. The following graph shows the number of publications
which includes SDOA Algorithm from 2011 to August 2016.

Number of Publications of SDO Algorithm

4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5

Number of Publications of SDO

Algorithm

2
1.5
1
0.5
0

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Proposed Methodology

Artificial Bee Colony Optimization:

Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm gained its popularity by solving complex problems. As we
know that most of heuristic methods doesnt depend upon their initially determined values
therefore these methods are superior than conventional methods because they dont get trapped
in divergence and local extrema situations.
There are two types of optimization problems i.e. constrained and unconstrained. In the
constrained types problems, we deal with practical applications and constrains are usually solved
via deferent techniques. The efficiency of these techniques is different for each other depending
upon the algorithm.
Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm is populations based and it was introduced to handle the
unconstrained functions.
The working principle of ABC is elaborated below
The artificial bee colony consists of three (3) groups.Scouts,onlookers and Employed bees. They
all have their assigned assignments for Employed bees (Eb) its their duty to find a food source
(solutions) and by dancing they communicate which is nectar amount or solution quality.
Onlooker bees (Ob) are already waiting in the dance area for Employed Bees. Duration of dance

is directly proportional to the nectars content which is fitness value of the food source. Onlooker
bees observes the various signals before choosing the source. Bees can change their status when
they find a new source for example onlooker and scout bees can become employed bee to visit
the new food source and the employed bee assigned to the food source abandons its position and
transform into scout or onlooker bee.
For robust search processes exploitation and exploration processes must continue
simultaneously, and in ABC algorithm scout bees take care the exploration process and
employed bees handle the exploitation.
In a colony (Cs)of artificial bees half bees are onlookers and other half consists of the employed
bees. Employed bees are sent all around the hive in search of food source and only One (1) bee is
assigned to one food source when all the food sources are drained only then scout bees search
their cycle to find an entirely new source. Trials which proves that particular food source is
exhausted is controlled by Limit value. I short summary the cycles of ABC run through like
this.
1. Employed Bees are sent to food sources and their nectar is measured.
2. Onlooker Bees after sharing information from Employed Bees select a food source.
3. If first two steps dont result in any food sources, then scout bees are chosen and they are
sent to find an entirely new food source.

Mathematical Formulation:
ABC Algorithm creates i numbers of random initial solutions. Where (i= 1, 2, 3, 4. Eb) i
represents the populations and Eb signifies population of Employed Bees which is half of the
total size of the Colony Populations.
Position of food source can be represented as a optimization problem, so the search of population
of the positions is subjected to repeat the search cycles for all bees hence
(cycle = 1, 2, 3, .MCN) where MCN represents maximum cycle numbers, then an
employed bee modifies its memory and tests the new nectar (position) if this source has higher
nectar it saves it into its memory otherwise it shall preserve the memory of the previous sample
after all employee bees have completed the search criteria then onlooker shall repeat the same
and decide one food source which is:

pi =

()

-------------------------------------------------------(a)

()
()
=1

where fitness(i) = fitness value of the solution

Eb = half the Cs or total value of solutions
Hence a good source shall attract more onlooker. To test the next nectar, they shall move to
location i+1 and compare to the value of i. This is the same selection criteria which is adopted by
the employed bees. This shall be repeated until all the onlookers are distributed.
If ith solution doesnt improve for the specified limit then the employed bee associated to the
solution shall change its status to scout and look for random food source. If the new position is
determined, then the same algorithm shall run until the solution is met.
The neighbouring food source is created in such a way that artificial bee colony algorithm alters
one randomly chosen parameter and doesnt change remaining parameters. Inother words, by
adding to the current chosen parameter value the product of the uniformvariant [-1,1] and the
difference between the chosen parameter value and other randomsolution parameter values, the
neighbour food-source position is created. The followingexpression verifies that:

=
+ (
) ------------------------------------(b)

where, k i and both are {1, 2, , Eb}.

u is a random number between[-1,1]
j {1, 2, , D}.

In other words, xij is the jth parameter of a solution xi that wasselected to be modified. When the
food-source position has been abandoned, theemployed bee associated with it becomes a scout.
The scout comes with a completely new solution.
()

= + (max

u is a random number between [-1,1]

min

) ------------------(c)

If a parameter value produced using (b) and/or (c) exceeds its predetermined limit, theparameter
can be set to an acceptable value.
Limit is an important parameter because this prevents the algorithm from getting into loop (local
extrema). Hence it has been suggested that limit should be 50% of the product of Cs and D.

Sensory Deprived Optimization Algorithm:

This algorithm is developed in 2011 and it is relatively newer than artificial bee colony, but in
the results this algorithm has either bypassed or proven to be equivalent of artificial bee colony.
Much like other heuristic algorithms this is also inspired by the natural phenomenon. The way
how a sensory deprived personal reaches to his/her destination is the inspiration of this
algorithm. If a blind person wants to walk in a specific direction or reach a certain goal without
any prior experience and guidance he shall have to automatically rely on his remaining senses,
which are: tasting, smelling, hearing and touching. He can get the feedback regarding his
surroundings from three senses which are smell, touch and tasting, whereas hearing sense could
be used to determine the position of slightly remote objects. We can understand easily that
exploration and exploitation procedure are present in the above theory. To elaborate them we can
see that feedback from touch, smell and taste represents the exploitation phenomenon in search
space and hearing represents the exploration phenomenon. The exploration process is further
divided into two strategies. First the hearing is employed to receive feedback from neighboring
search region and second or temporary the worst performing sensory deprived population is
replaced by those who from in better in parallel search process. The parallel search dynamically
shrinks when the numbers of iterations are increased. This process is repeated until we reach our
stopping criteria.
The speciality of this algorithm is its semi-exploration and semi-exploitation process which leads
to wide range coverage and avoid premature convergence, moreover the solution vectors of the
main algorithm are enhanced by solution vectors from the temporary semi-exploration process.

Mathematical Formulation:
The population update their standing position by using their senses. After a number of steps (R),
individuals interact with each other and decide a leader. Leader shall have the highest probability
of achieving the results. Once the leader is determined the remaining population shall follow him
by searching around. The leader and followers shall be ranked by their fitness function values. At
the same time when the leader is selected new ranked positions shall be assigned and evaluated,
these positions are assigned by the user. The parallel process further exploits and dramatically
decreases when iterations are increased. After that a solution of parallel and main process are
swapped, merged or retained and iterations begins. This is repeated to a predetermined times.

The initial solution is a D-Dimensional vector with D parameters is to be optimized.

Xi = [xj

xj+1 .......... xD]i ------------------------------------------------------(a)

Where i { 1, 2, 3, .........SDP}
j { 1, 2, 3, ...............D}

The processes to change the standing position of a SDP into four senses (4) for the main search
are:

Randomly select the jth parameter of an xi solution to be modified.

Randomly retain the jth parameter of an xk solution, taking into account that i k
and both i and k {1, 2, , SDP}.

Apply the following formulas:

=
+ (
)------------------------------------(b)

=
+ (
)------------------------------------(c)

Select the best standing position by means of fitness value.

Equation (b) is used for the searches of nearby senses i.e taste, smell and touch whereas the
equation (c) is used for the hear sense.
The multipliers u and U are randomly distributed numbers and their ranges are
For u the range is said to be [-1 , 1] and for U the range is set [-5, 5] if the new parameter get
beyond the value of range then it is adjusted to the nearest value.
In second or temporary option the first three (3) steps are same but instead of selecting and
keeping a single parameter half of D parameters are selected and retained which are to be
modified by parallel search. The number of SDPparallel are suggested to be 10% of the main
population and it will gradually decrease when the iteration increase.
The probability of the solution is i(pi) is calculated on the fitness level (fiti)
()

pi = () -------------------------------------------------------------(d)
=1

Hybrid Model of Artificial Bee Colony and Sensory Deprived Algorithms:

In most of the heuristic techniques there are two procedures. The first one explores the search
space to obtain a feasible region and in the second procedure this region is exploited and optimal
solution is determined. To obtain a superior algorithm a good balance between these two
procedures is necessary. There is another parameter which also effects the performance of a

algorithm that is its parameters which are to be adjusted. An ideal algorithm should have higher
efficiency and few parameters to adjust.
Hence in the hybrid model of both SDOA and ABC we will be utilizing the parameter tuning of
ABC and semi exploration and semi exploitation of SDOA in order to reach the solution.

Expected Outcomes
The objective of this thesis is to come up with a superior solution in DED problems using the
dominant parts of both algorithmsand compare the results with other heuristic solutions in terms
of irritations, time taken in computation of final resultsquality and required CPU time

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