An advanced integrated expert system for wastewater treatment plants control

The activated sludge process is a commonly used method for treating wastewa ter. Due to the biological nature of the process it is characterized by poo rly understood basic biological behavior mechanisms, a lack of reliable on- line instrumentation, and by control goals that are not always clearly stat ed. It is generally recognized that an Expert System (ES) can cope with man y of the common problems relative with the operation and control of the act ivated sludge process. In this work an integrated and distributed ES is dev eloped which supervises the control system of the whole treatment plant. Th e system has the capability to learn from the correct or wrong solutions gi ven to previous cases. The structure of the suggested ES is analyzed and th e supervision of the local controllers is described. In this way, the main problems of conventional control strategies and individual knowledge-based systems are overcome. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.