Int. J. Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, Vol. 11, Nos. 3/4, 2012 267 Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Particle swarm optimisation for power quality improvement of a 12-pulse rectifier-chopper fed LCI-synchronous motor drive Sanjeev Singh* EIE Department, SLIET Longowal, Sangrur, Punjab, India Email: sschauhan.sdl@gmail.com *Corresponding author Bhim Singh Electrical Engineering Department, IIT Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India Email: bhimsinghr@gmail.com Abstract: This paper investigates the optimised passive filter combination for power quality improvement of a 12-pulse rectifier-chopper fed load commutated inverter (LCI) based synchronous motor (SM) drive. The search of optimised component values of passive filter combination is carried out by a modified particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm with an objective of reduction in total harmonic distortion (THD) and improvement in power factor (PF) of AC mains current. The proposed PSO algorithm is formulated and implemented in the MATLAB-SIMULINK environment for three varieties of loads on LCI-SM drive, namely constant torque variable speed loads, constant speed variable torque load and variable speed variable torque load to meet the requirements in wide range of applications. The obtained results show considerable improvement in the power quality at the input AC mains of the LCI-SM drives for all varieties of loads and presents a basis for selection of a suitable passive filter combination. Keywords: particle swarm optimisation; power quality; passive filter; LCI; 12-pulse converters; diode rectifiers; chopper; synchronous motors. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Singh, S. and Singh, B. (2012) ‘Particle swarm optimisation for power quality improvement of a 12-pulse rectifier-chopper fed LCI-synchronous motor drive ’, Int. J. Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, Vol. 11, Nos. 3/4, pp.267–285. Biographical notes: Sanjeev Singh received his BE (Electrical) degree from A.P.S. University, Rewa, India, in 1993, MTech degree from DAVV, Indore, India, in 1997 and PhD degree from IIT Delhi, India, in 2011. In 2000, he joined Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Sangrur, Punjab, as a Lecturer in Department of Electrical and Instrumentation Engineering, where he is currently an Assistant Professor. He is a member of IEEE, senior member of APCBEES, and life member of the ISTE, the SSI, and the Institution of Engineers (India). His areas of interest include power electronics, electrical machines and drives, energy efficiency and power quality.