Abstract
Parameter identification is an important method to establish the governing system of a pumped storage unit. Appropriate parameters will make the governing system obtain better control performance. Therefore, in this study, an improved artificial hummingbird algorithm (IAHA) is proposed for the parameter identification of the governing system in a pumped storage unit. The algorithm integrates two key strategies to improve the optimization ability of the algorithm. First, the Chebyshev chaotic map is employed to initialize the artificial hummingbirds, which in turn increases and enhances the global search capability of the initial population. Second, the Levy flight is introduced in the guided foraging phase to expand the search space and avoid premature convergence. The performance of the proposed IAHA algorithm is compared with that of four other algorithms on 23 standard test functions, and the results show that IAHA has higher accuracy and faster convergence than the other four algorithms. Finally, IAHA was applied to the parameter identification of the governing system of a pumped storage unit to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm in tracking real-world problems.