The frequency control is the mandatory task in a modern power system because of load demand variation and the integration of renewable energy sources (RESs). The main objective of automatic generation control (AGC) scheme is to maintain the balance between generation and load demand. This study proposes a graphical robust characteristic ratio assignment (RCRA) approach for PIDA controller tuning based on maximum sensitivity (M s) for AGC. The basic feature of this graphical approach is that characteristic ratios (γ i) in RCRA scheme are calculated in terms of M s. The important part of this design is that the analytical expressions for coefficient gains of PIDA controller are derived in terms of γ i and system parameters. Here, the non-reheat steam-turbine and hydro-turbine based single and multi-area power systems are considered for validation of the proposed control scheme. The critical issue in controller design for a hydro-turbine based power system is the non-minimum phase behaviour. The robustness and performance of RCRA-PIDA controller are examined under system non-linearities, parametric uncertainty and disturbances. Further, the performance of proposed approach is evaluated in the presence of RESs. Finally, it is observed that the proposed control approach performs better in comparison to the recently published control schemes.