Calibrating activated sludge models through hyperparameter optimization: a new framework for wastewater treatment plant simulation

Abstract

Traditional calibration of Activated Sludge Models (ASM) is often manual, expert-dependent, and inefficient. This study introduces a hyperparameter optimisation framework using Optuna to automate the calibration of the ASM2d model. Built on Python, the model integrates the Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (TPE) for single-objective and NSGA-II for multi-objective optimisation. A 50-day dataset from a full-scale wastewater treatment plant in Shenzhen, China, validates the approach. Compared to traditional methods, TPE reduced average relative errors for TN and COD from 4.587 and 24.846% to 0.798 and 15.291%, respectively, while decreasing iterations by 15–20%. NSGA-II lowered TN and COD errors to 4.72 and 15.17%, further improving to 0.095% and 8.43% with full-parameter tuning. Calibration efficiency increased by 65–75%. By effectively exploring parameter interdependencies, TPE and NSGA-II enhance calibration robustness and generalisation. This automated optimisation method significantly improves the accuracy and efficiency of ASM calibration, advancing intelligent wastewater process modelling.