Distribution Systems Reconfiguration Using Ant Colony Optimization and Harmony Search Algorithms

One objective of the feeder reconfiguration problem in distribution systems is to minimize the distribution network total power loss for a specific load. For this problem, mathematical modeling is a non-linear mixed integer problem that is generally hard to solve. This article proposes two heuristic algorithms inspired from natural phenomena to solve the network reconfiguration problem: (1) real ant-behavior-inspired ant colony optimization implemented in the hyper cube framework and (2) the musician behavior-inspired harmony search algorithm. The optimization problem is formulated taking into account the operational constraints of distribution systems. A 32-bus system and a 118-bus distribution were selected for optimizing the configuration to minimize the losses. The results of reconfiguration using the proposed algorithms show that both of them yield the optimum configuration with minimum power loss for each case study; however, the harmony search required shorter simulation time but more practice of the iterative process than the hyper cubeant colony optimization. Implementing the ant colony optimization in the hyper cube framework resulted in a more robust and easier handling of pheromone trails than the standard ant colony optimization.