Wastewater Treatment Plants - Classical vs. Advanced and Intelligent Control Approaches

Abstract

The first part of the talk will focus on the architecture of WWTPs, including the Distributed Control Systems/ Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (DCS-SCADA) that are usually implemented to control these complex processes. Practical examples of WWTPs will be analysed. In the second part of the talk, several aspects related to the modelling of biological processes from WWTPs will be presented. Thus, the modelling paradigms will be investigated, and some specific models will be presented. For example, the so-called ASMs (Activated Sludge Models) developed by Henze et al. since 2000s are very complex models, which necessitate further reduction and interpretation to be used in control design. The last part of the talk will be dedicated to WWTPs control. As we can observe in many reports and from the field situation in several WWTPs, the implementation of advanced control is very poor. In many cases, the SCADA systems are working by using empirical rules and classical controllers (such as PID, on/off). Thus, the performance of WWTPs is not as expected. The use of advanced control would lead to a significant improvement in both efficiency and performance. The trends in the design of bioprocess control algorithms are related to adaptive, intelligent, predictive and/or optimal control. Several approaches will be presented, starting with the adaptive control initially developed by Bastin and Dochain in 1990s and continuing with model predictive control and intelligent approaches (Neural Networks, bio-inspired algorithms, etc.). Some practical examples of control implementation from a WWTP will be provided.