The Transient Stability Constrained Optimal Power Flow (TSCOPF) has become an important tool for power systems today. TSCOPF is a nonlinear optimisation problem, making its solution difficult, especially for small power systems. This paper presents a new optimisation method that incorporates Fitness-Distance Balance (FDB) with the Artificial Ecosystem Optimisation (AEO) algorithm to improve the solution quality in multi-dimensional and nonlinear optimisation problems. The proposed method, named the Fitness-Distance Balance Artificial Ecosystem Optimisation (FDBAEO), also has the capacity to solve the TSCOPF problem efficiently. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithm, it was tested on IEEE CEC benchmarks and on an IEEE 30-bus test system for the TSCOPF problem. Simulation results were compared with the basic AEO algorithm and other current meta-heuristic methods reported in the literature. The results showed that the proposed method was more effective in converging at the global optimum point in solving the TSCOPF problem compared to the other algorithms. This situation indicates that the design changes made in the decomposition phase of the AEO were more suitable for simulating the operation of the algorithm in the real world. The FDBAEO has exhibited a promising performance in solving both single-objective optimisation and constrained real-world engineering design problems.

Moth Swarm Algorithm (MSA) is one of the newest developed nature-inspired heuristics for optimization problem. Nevertheless MSA has a drawback which is slow convergence. Chaos is incorporated into MSA to eliminate this drawback. In this paper, ten chaotic maps have been embedded into MSA to find the best numbers of prospectors for increase the exploitation of the best promising solutions. The proposed method is applied to solve the well-known seven benchmark test functions. Simulation results show that chaotic maps can improve the performance of the original MSA in terms of the convergence speed. At the same time, sinusoidal map is the best map for improving the performance of MSA significantly.

In this study, symbiotic organisms search (SOS) algorithm is proposed to solve the dynamic economic dispatch with valve-point effects problem, which is one of the most important problems of the modern power system. Some practical constraints like valve-point effects, ramp rate limits and prohibited operating zones have been considered as solutions. Proposed algorithm was tested on five different test cases in 5 units, 10 units and 13 units systems. The obtained results have been compared with other well-known metaheuristic methods reported before. Results show that proposed algorithm has a good convergence and produces better results than other methods.

This paper proposes the application of Symbiotic Organisms Search (SOS) Algorithm to solve the various Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) problems. Both classical ELD problem which has smooth fuel cost function and nonconvex ELD problem which has nonconvex and discontinuous fuel cost function due to considering of some practical constraints like valve point effects, ramp rate limits and prohibited generating zones have been solved in the study. Three different test cases have been used to show the efficiency and reliability of the proposed algorithm. 38-unit test system has been used for classical ELD and 3-unit and 15-unit test systems have been used for nonconvex ELD problem. Results have been compared to various heuristic methods reported before in the literature and they show that proposed algorithm converges to the global optimum in early iterations and can produce superior results than others in the solution of ELD problems which have both smooth and nonconvex and discontinuous fuel cost function.

In this study, a decision support system has been developed for land mine detection and classification. Data obtained from detector based magnetic anomaly have been used to classify the land mines. With this classification, it is decided that whether obtained data belongs to a land mine or not, and the type of mine. The meta-heuristic k-NN classifier (HKC) has been used in developed decision support system. Consequently, it is seen that decision support system detects the presence of mines and decides the type of mine with 100% success for measurements in a certain range, and the proposed classifying method shows much higher performance than traditional instance-based classification method.