This paper proposes a maiden application of the fractional-order proportionalintegral-derivative plus the second-order derivative controller called FOPIDD 2 (PI λ D μ D 2 ) to achieve better transient response at a terminal voltage of automatic voltage regulator (AVR). Multi-verse optimizer (MVO) algorithm is used for tuning six optimization parameters of controller. MVO is a powerful optimization algorithm with great convergence speed and strong search mechanisms for an expanded number of decisions. The proposed FOPIDD 2 controller is compared with proportional-integral-derivative (PID), PID plus second-order derivative (PIDD 2 ), fractional order PID (FOPID) and filtered FOPID controllers obtained using different algorithms in both time domain and frequency domain. According to the results, FOPIDD 2 controller shows superior performance than compared studies in terms of transient response of terminal voltage of AVR. Additionally, frequency domain analysis shows that FOPIDD 2 controller presents satisfactory results. Finally, the system is subjected to a robustness test with changes in time constants and gain constants values. AVR system with FOPIDD 2 controller performs better in perturbed system parameters than compared controllers.