An advanced integrated expert system for wastewater treatment plants control

摘要

The activated sludge process is a commonly used method for treating wastewater. Due to the biological nature of the process it is characterized by poorly understood basic biological behavior mechanisms, a lack of reliable on-line instrumentation, and by control goals that are not always clearly stated. It is generally recognized that an Expert System (ES) can cope with many of the common problems relative with the operation and control of the activated sludge process. In this work an integrated and distributed ES is developed which supervises the control system of the whole treatment plant. The system has the capability to learn from the correct or wrong solutions given to previous cases. The structure of the suggested ES is analyzed and the supervision of the local controllers is described. In this way, the main problems of conventional control strategies and individual knowledge-based systems are overcome.