A tuned cuckoo search algorithm for optimal coordination of Directional Overcurrent Relays

The precise coordination of Directional Overcurrent Relays (DOCRs) is required to identify fault timely, effectively and isolate them from the network to avoid possible outages in a power system. The DOCRs coordination is an optimization problem including highly nonlinear constraints. In this paper, Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA) is implemented to solve coordination problem of DOCRs on two different case studies. The parameters of CSA are effectively tuned to obtain global best solution for the DOCRs coordination problem. The obtained results using the proposed method are compared with Genetic Algorithm (GA) and hybrid GA-Nonlinear programming (GA-NLP) methods. The result shows that the effective modification of CSA parameters can obtain feasible and superior solution for this complex problem.