Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Improvements in Dissolved Oxygen Control of an Activated Sludge Wastewater Treatment Process

  • Published:
Circuits, Systems, and Signal Processing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Nowadays there is great emphasis on the optimization of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) due to the strict regulations concerning discharged waters. The control techniques currently used in WWTPs include simple PLC-based proportional-integral-derivative control techniques. The most complex part of wastewater treatment is the activated sludge process, where the sewage is biologically treated by means of a microorganism culture in the presence of air or oxygen. This paper shows a simple way of decreasing the operational costs, together with an increase in performance and disturbances rejection by using fractional order Proportional-Integral controllers on the dissolved oxygen concentration and on the air pressure generated by the air blower. Closed loop system performance, using the fractional order Proportional-Integral controller, are compared to those obtained by using the conventional Proportional-Integral controller on the dissolved oxygen concentration. They prove the robustness of the former controller against the parameters variations. The controllers are designed and simulated on the mathematical model of the WWTP of Romanofir, Talmaciu.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. K.J. Astrom, T. Hagglund, The future of PID control. Control Eng. Pract. 9(11), 1163–1175 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. C. Belchior, R. Araújo, J. Landeck, Dissolved oxygen control of the activated sludge wastewater treatment process using stable adaptive fuzzy control. Comput. Chem. Eng. 37, 152–162 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. D. Brjdanovic, S.C.F. Meijer, C.M. Lopez-Vazquez, C.M. Hooijmans, M.C.M. van Loosdrecht, Applications of Activated Sludge Models (IWA Publishing, London, 2015)

    Google Scholar 

  4. J.-Y. Cao, B.-G. Cao, Design of fractional order controller based on particle swarm optimization. Int. J. Control, Autom. Syst. 4(6), 775–781 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  5. C. Copot, C.I Muresan, C.M. Ionescu, R. De Keyser, Fractional order control of a DC motor with load changes, in 14th International Conference on Optimization of Electrical and Electronic Equipment OPTIM, pp. 956–961, 22–24 May, Brasov, Romania, DOI:10.1109/OPTIM.2014.6850964 (2014)

  6. T. Giampaolo, Compressor Handbook: Principles and Practice. The Fairmont Press, ISBN-13: 978–1439815717, (2013)

  7. G. Harja , G. Vlad, I. Nascu, Dissolved oxygen control strategy for an activated sludge wastewater treatment process. Recent Advances in Electrical Engineering Series. Recent Advances in Systems, in Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Systems (CSCC’15), 16–20 July, Zakynthos, Greece, pp. 453–458, ISSN:17905117, ISBN:978-1-61804-321-4, (2015)

  8. M. Henderson, Energy Reduction Methods in the Aeration Process at Perth Waste Water Treatment Plant. University of Strathclyde, renewable energy systems and the environment MSc individual theses, (2001–2002)

  9. M. Henze, W. Gujer, T. Mino, M. Van Loosdrecht, Activated Sludge Models Asm1, Asm2, Asm2d And Asm3. Padstow: Iwa Task Group On Mathematical Modelling For Design And Operation Of Biological Wastewater Treatment (IWA Publishing, London, 2000), p. 121

  10. D. Herbert, Some principles of continuous culture, in Recent Progress in, Microbiology, ed. by G. Tunevall (Springfield, Ill, Thomas, 1958), pp. 381–396

  11. B. Holenda, E. Domokos, A. Redey, J. Fazakas, Dissolved oxygen control of the activated sludge wastewater treatment process using model predictive control. Comput. Chem. Eng. 32, 1270–1278 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. C. Ionescu, R. De Keyser, Relations between fractional order model parameters and lung pathology in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 56, 978–987 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. St Iordache, N. Petrescu, C. Necula, G. Busuioc, Municipal Wastewater treatment improvement using computer simulating, advances in waste management, in Proceedings of the 4th WSEAS International Conference on Waste Management, Water Pollution, Air Pollution, Indoor Climate (WWAI’10), pp. 95–100, ISBN: 978-960-474-190-8, (2010)

  14. S. Kestel, T. Stahl, M. Gray, Process simulator evaluates blower and valve control strategies for WWTP aeration. Compressed air best practices. http://www.airbestpractices.com/industries/wastewater/process-simulator-evaluates-blower-and-valve-control-strategies-wwtp-aeration, (2014)

  15. J. Kocijan, N. Hvala, S. Strmčnik, Multi-model control of wastewater treatment reactor, in System and Control: Theory and Applications, ed. by N. Mastorakis. Electrical and Computer Engineering Series (World Scientific and Engineering Society, 2000), pp. 49–54

  16. Y. Luo, Y.Q. Chen, C.Y. Wang, Y.G. Pi, Tuning fractional order proportional integral controllers for fractional order systems. J. Process Control 20, 823–831 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. F. Mainardi, Fractional Calculus And Waves in Linear Viscoelasticity: An Introduction to Mathematical Models (Imperial College Press, London, 2010)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. S. Mirghasemi, C.J.B. Macnab, A. Chu, Dissolved oxygen control of activated sludge bioreactors using neural-adaptive control, in IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Control and Automation, Orlando, Florida, pp. 1–6, (2014)

  19. C.A. Monje, Y.Q. Chen, B.M. Vinagre, D. Xue, V. Feliu, Fractional order Systems and Controls: Fundamentals and Applications (Springer, London, 2010)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  20. I. Muntean, R. Both, R. Crisan, I. Nascu, RGA analysis and decentralized control for a wastewater treatment plant, in Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology (ICIT), 17–19 March, Seville, Spain, pp. 453–458, (2015), DOI:10.1109/ICIT.2015.7125140

  21. C.I. Muresan, E.H. Dulf, R. Both, A. Palfi, M. Caprioru, Microcontroller implementation of a multivariable fractional order PI controller, in The 9th International Conference on Control Systems and Computer Science (CSCS), IEEE Catalog Number E4980, pp. 44–51, 29–31 May, Bucharest, Romania, (2013). DOI:10.1109/CSCS.2013.9

  22. C.I. Muresan, S. Folea, G. Mois, E.H. Dulf, Development and implementation of an FPGA based fractional order controller for a DC motor. Elsevier J. Mechatron. 23(7), 798–804 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. F. Nejjari, B. Dahhou, A. Benhammou, G. Roux, Non-linear multivariable adaptive control. Int. J. adapt. Control Signal Process. 13, 347–365 (1999)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. G. Olsson, State of the art in sewage treatment plant control. A. I. ChE Symp. Ser. 72, 52–76 (1976)

    Google Scholar 

  25. E. Pittoors, Y. Guo, S.W.H. Van Hulle, Modeling dissolved oxygen concentration for optimizing aeration systems and reducing oxygen consumption in activated sludge processes: a review. Chem. Eng. Commun. 201(8), 983–1002 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. G. Vlad, R. Crisan, B. Muresan, I. Nascu, C. Darab, Development and application of a predictive adaptive controller to a wastewater treatment process, in IEEE International Conference on Automation Quality and Testing Robotics (AQTR 2010), vol.1, pp. 219–224, Cluj-Napoca, ISBN:978-1-4244-6722-8. DOI:10.1109/AQTR.2010.5520886

  27. D. Xue, C. Zhao, Y. Chen, A modified approximation method of fractional order system, in Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, Luoyang, China, 25–28 June, pp. 1043–1048, (2006)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Automation, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 26-28 Gh. Baritiu Street, 400027, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Gabriel Harja, Cristina Muresan & Ioan Nascu

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Centre for Process Systems Engineering (CPSE), Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    Ioana Nascu

Authors
  1. Gabriel Harja
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ioana Nascu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Cristina Muresan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ioan Nascu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabriel Harja.

Additional information

This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNDI– UEFISCDI, project number 274/09.09.2014.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Harja, G., Nascu, I., Muresan, C. et al. Improvements in Dissolved Oxygen Control of an Activated Sludge Wastewater Treatment Process. Circuits Syst Signal Process 35, 2259–2281 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00034-016-0282-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00034-016-0282-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation