  The issues of stochastically varying network delays and packet dropouts in
Networked Control System (NCS) applications have been simultaneously addressed
by time domain optimal tuning of fractional order (FO) PID controllers.
Different variants of evolutionary algorithms are used for the tuning process
and their performances are compared. Also the effectiveness of the fractional
order PI{\lambda}D{\mu} controllers over their integer order counterparts is
looked into. Two standard test bench plants with time delay and unstable poles
which are encountered in process control applications are tuned with the
proposed method to establish the validity of the tuning methodology. The
proposed tuning methodology is independent of the specific choice of plant and
is also applicable for less complicated systems. Thus it is useful in a wide
variety of scenarios. The paper also shows the superiority of FOPID controllers
over their conventional PID counterparts for NCS applications.
