A hybrid least squares-differential evolution based algorithm for harmonic estimation

With the increasing use of nonlinear loads harmonic distortion has become an important problem in power quality. To prevent the adverse effects of harmonic distortion it is necessary to estimate the harmonics´ phase angles and amplitudes. In the last years, as an alternative to the conventional methods hybrid evolutionary computation algorithms have been proposed for harmonic estimation. In these hybrid algorithms, phase angles are optimized by an evolutionary computation algorithm and amplitudes are calculated by Least Squares (LS) Method. In this study, for the harmonic estimation problem a hybrid algorithm which uses Differential Evolution along with LS Method is proposed. The proposed algorithm is applied in simulations and accuracy - computation time performances are compared with the hybrid algorithm which uses PSOPC. From the obtained results it is seen that the proposed algorithm is more efficient.