Abstract
A fractional order PID (FOPID) controller was designed to control a pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power plant. The reactor was represented by a simplified model using point kinetic equations with one group of delayed neutrons and the associated thermal hydraulic equation. The FOPID design was based on minimizing the sum of integral of squared error (ISE) and integral of squared controller output (ISCO) using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Compared with other optimization methods, the PSO is faster, simpler and needs fewer parameters to be adjusted. The simulation of the reactor power response to a reactivity insertion using the FOPID controller showed better performance with respect to the power increase overshoot compared to those of the PID controller. In addition, the settling and steady state times were shorter.