Modeling and Control of Wastewater Treatment Process

Studies and research in modeling and control tools of the biological wastewater treatment process is very significant to improve the conventional operation control strategies and eventually giving big positive impact to our own environment. Hence, the objectives of this work are:
i. To study wastewater treatment process
ii. To model and simulate an activated sludge process
iii. To apply control strategies on the model
A wastewater treatment plant has been studied and activated sludge process has become the subject of concern as it is the most widely used technology for biological treatment in a wastewater treatment plant. The activated sludge plant has been modeled following the Benchmark Simulation Model No. 1 (BSM1) developed by COST 682 Working Group No. 2 to provide standard process assessment and besides, this model is accepted internationally. The model is implemented using MATLAB/Simulink Software to capture the mathematical model describing the process. The control of dissolved oxygen level in the reactors plays an important role in the operation, thus conventional PI control strategy had been applied to the model to control the dissolve oxygen (DO) level in the aerated reactor. To further improvement of the DO control in the system, a new approach of advance control strategy had been also applied to the system. Model Predictive Control (MPC) is introduced to the activated sludge plant. The control strategies had been evaluated and comparison had been made between the conventional PI controller and the MPC. The results showed that the system shows control improvement with the MPC implemented to the plant.
Research study and literature review on the topic will be discussed in Chapter 2 of the report. All resources had been used wisely to obtain the most information regarding wastewater treatment process and its control strategies. Methodology of this project is represented in Chapter 3 of this report. Gantt chart is also included to present the activity conducted throughout the semester which in all, most of them have been executed successfully. The results of the project are shown in Chapter 4. Finally in Chapter 5, conclusion of the project is represented with recommendation for future work.