Abstract
Fractional PID controller is a convenient fractional structure that has been used to solve many problems in automatic control. The fractional scale proportional-integral-differential controller is a generalization of the integer order PID controller in the complex domain. By introducing two adjustable parameters and , the controller parameter tuning range becomes larger, but the parameter design becomes more complex. This paper presents a new method for the design of fractional PID controllers. Specifically, the parameters of a fractional PID controller are optimized by a particle swarm optimization algorithm. Our simulation results on cold rolling APC system show that the designed controller can achieve control accuracy higher than that of a traditional PID controller.