Abstract: This Paper presents a comparative study of Z-N method and GeneticAlgorithm method (GA) to determine the optimal proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller parameters, for speed control of a Field Oriented Control (FOC) induction motor; the GA algorithm has been programmed and implemented in MATLAB. Z-N method and trial and error and open loop IM has been modelled in MATLAB (SIMULINK).comparing with traditional Ziegler-Nicholson method, it has been observed that during optimizing the controller parameters of a FOC IM drive with evolutionary algorithms (EA), the performance of the controller is improved for the step input in speed control as well as for speed tracking problem more efficiently under no load condition, if the load is placed on IM, the performance characteristics have changed for ZN and trial and error method, but even if load change occur, there is no much variation in the evolutionary algorithms (GA) than and Ziegler – Nicholson method.

Keywords: FOC (IM), fitness function, GA, Z-N method, PIControl, PID control