In this study, a normal form based excitation controller for oscillatory dynamics in power systems is investigated. Afterwards, instead of using a conventional linear control technique for the secondary controller, a novel non‐linear objective for the rotor mode is considered to emulate ideal power system stabiliser (PSS) characteristics. With the aid of eigenvalue analysis, it is shown that the proposed method exhibit ideal PSS characteristics. Moreover, it is demonstrated the proposed technique is robust when compared with the conventional controllers. Time‐domain simulation is performed on the third‐, fourth‐, and sixth‐order model (i.e. IEEE model 1.0, 1.1, and 2.2) of the synchronous machines. Simulation results are shown on a single machine infinite bus power system model.