In this paper, a hybrid gravitational search algorithm (GSA) and pattern search (PS) technique is proposed for load frequency control (LFC) of multi-area power system. Initially, various conventional error criterions are considered, the PI controller parameters for a two-area power system are optimized employing GSA and the effect of objective function on system performance is analyzed. Then GSA control parameters are tuned by carrying out multiple runs of algorithm for each control parameter variation. After that PS is employed to fine tune the best solution provided by GSA. Further, modifications in the objective function and controller structure are introduced and the controller parameters are optimized employing the proposed hybrid GSA and PS (hGSA-PS) approach. The superiority of the proposed approach is demonstrated by comparing the results with some recently published modern heuristic optimization techniques such as firefly algorithm (FA), differential evolution (DE), bacteria foraging optimization algorithm (BFOA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), hybrid BFOA-PSO, NSGA-II and genetic algorithm (GA) for the same interconnected power system. Additionally, sensitivity analysis is performed by varying the system parameters and operating load conditions from their nominal values. Also, the proposed approach is extended to two-area reheat thermal power system by considering the physical constraints such as reheat turbine, generation rate constraint (GRC) and governor dead band (GDB) nonlinearity. Finally, to demonstrate the ability of the proposed algorithm to cope with nonlinear and unequal interconnected areas with different controller coefficients, the study is extended to a nonlinear three unequal area power system and the controller parameters of each area are optimized using proposed hGSA-PS technique. 
A novel hybrid gravitational search and pattern search algorithm for load frequency control of nonlinear power system