19th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering – ESCAPE19

J. JeĪowski and J. Thullie (Editors)

© 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1197

Comparison of Control Strategies for Dissolved

Oxygen Control in Activated Sludge Wastewater
Treatment Process
Evrim Akyurek,a Mehmet Yuceer,b Ilknur Atasoy,c Ridvan Berber a*+
a
Ankara University, Faculty of Enginering, Dept.of Chemical Engineering 06100
Tandogan/Ankara, Turkey, E-mail: akyurek@eng.ankara.edu.tr,
E-mail:berber@eng.ankara.edu.tr
b
Inonu University, Faculty of Enginering, Dept.of Chemical Engineering 44280
Malatya, Turkey, E-mail:myuceer@inonu.edu.tr
c
Refik Saydam Hygiene Center, Department of Environment Health Research 06100
Ankara, Turkey, E-mail: ilknur.emre@rshm.gov.tr

Abstract
Six control strategies; PID control, Model Predictive Control (MPC) with linear model,
MPC with non-linear model, Nonlinear Autoregressive-Moving Average (NARMA-L2)
control, Neural Network Model Predictive Control (NN-MPC) and optimal control with
sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm were evaluated via simulation of
activated sludge wastewater treatment process. Controller performance assessment was
based on rise time, overshoot, Integral Absolute Error (IAE) and Integral Square Error
(ISE) performance criteria. As dissolved oxygen level in the aeration tank plays an
important role in obtaining the effluent water quality, and in operating cost, it was
chosen as the controlled variable. It was concluded consequently that NARMA-L2
controller and optimal control with SQP would outperform the others in achieving the
specified objective.

Keywords: Activated sludge process, MPC, Neural Network MPC, NARMA-L2,

Optimal control

1. Introduction
Effective control of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has been receiving rising
attention during the last decade due to increasing concern about environmental issues.
In this sense, the importance of studies concentrating on control and operation of
WWTP is remaining intact. Activated sludge process is commonly used in biological
wastewater treatment. In this process, a bacterial biomass suspension is responsible for
the removal of pollutants; depending on the design and the specific application, an
activated sludge WWTP can achieve biological nitrogen removal and biological
phosphorus removal, besides removal of organic carbon substances [1]. In the control of
wastewater treatment plants, generally mechanistic models are used in simulating plant
behavior over a wide range of operating conditions. The main activated sludge models
were developed by the International Water Association (IWA). The Activated Sludge
Model No.1 (ASM1) has been widely accepted as a reference model in activated sludge
process [2]. There have been previous investigations attempting to tackle the control
problem in activated sludge processes. Among the latest ones, one can mention the
works by Caraman et al. [3] and Holenda et al. [4] who both tried MPC algorithm with
a simplified model and ASM1 model. In one previous control study by Stare et al. [5],
1198 E. Akyurek et al.

only two different controllers (namely PI and MPC) were applied on Benchmark
simulation model 1. Therefore, thorough comparative study is thought to be needed.
Dissolved oxygen control, ammonia control and nitrogen control are the most
commonly used controlled variables in activated sludge processes. The growth rate of
the microorganism and the concentration of effluent substrate are highly dependent on
dissolved oxygen level in the process. For this reason dissolved oxygen concentration in
the aeration tank was selected as controlled variable in this study. The objective was to
maintain the effluent substrate concentration below a preset level dictated by
environmental regulations. This goal was achieved by controlling effluent dissolved
oxygen concentration at the set point by manipulating aeration rate. The proposed
control strategies were evaluated in terms of set-point rise time, reliability of
manipulated variable, IAE and ISE performance criteria.

2. Model and Methods

2.1. Plant Layout and Process Model
The wastewater treatment process whose schematic representation is shown in Figure 1
is considered. Simplified mathematical model and kinetic parameters were taken from
the literature [3, 6].
Prior to the closed loop control simulations, the process was brought to the steady state,
and in the course of simulations it was assumed that there was no substrate or dissolved
oxygen in the recycled sludge flow of the bioreactor. Equations of biological reactions
in aeration tank and settler were extracted from previous studies [3, 6].
2.2. Applied control strategies
The state-space model for the controllers was generated by linearization of the activated
sludge process using Jacobian at the steady-state operating point obtained from open-
loop simulations of the wastewater treatment plant. Having applied constant
concentration values for the influent for 42 days, the steady-state operating points were
reached in start-up simulations. Obtained operating points were used as initial values for
proceeding control simulations. Trial and error method was used for the identification of
tuning parameters for obtaining the possible best performance out of the controller.
Boundaries of manipulated variables were the same for all control algorithms. The
maximum aeration rate was limited to 80 1/h and the minimum aeration rate was limited
to 40 1/h, while the dissolved oxygen values were maintained between 0 and 7 mg/L.

Figure 1. Wastewater treatment process

Comparison of Control Strategies for Dissolved Oxygen Control in Activated Sludge
Wastewater Treatment Process 1199

2.2.1. PID control

In this control strategy state-space linear model was used. Parameters of PID controller
were tuned using Ziegler-Nichols method. Tuning parameters of the PID controller were
found to be as Kp=46, τi=115, τd=4.6.
2.2.2. Model Predictive Control
MPC is by far the most commonly applied advanced control strategy in the wastewater
treatment process. In this control strategy two approaches were applied with using
MATLAB MPC toolbox; MPC with linear model and MPC with non-linear model.
During the simulations aeration rate was taken as manipulated variable with constant
dilution rate. Parameters of MPC controller were tuned by trial and error. The prediction
horizon and control horizon were determined as 60 and 20 interval, respectively, and the
sampling time was taken as 0.25 h.
2.2.3. NN-MPC & NARMA-L2 Control
Neural network model predictive control and Nonlinear Autoregressive-Moving
Average control were applied successfully in the identification and control of dynamic
systems. Rather than attempting to survey the many ways in which multilayer networks
have been used in control systems, we concentrated on two typical neural network
controllers: model predictive control [7, 8], and NARMA-L2 control [8]. They are
based on standard linear control architectures like other neural controllers. Using neural
networks for control purposes, two steps are critical; system identification and control
design. In the system identification stage, a neural network model of the plant was
developed to control, and in the control design stage, the neural network plant model
was used to design and train the controller [9]. Table 1 shows the parameters used in
these controllers.
2.2.4. Optimal control with sequential quadratic programming algorithm
Sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method is an iterative method, which solves
at each iteration a quadratic programming problem to investigate the best operational
strategy for manipulated variable sought to catch the set point. In this control strategy,
firstly state variables and manipulated (optimized) variable (x(0) and u(0)) were
initialized, and upper and lower bounds of manipulated variable (u) were defined. Then
model was solved up to tfinal with 0.25 h sampling time and obtained state variables in
each interval were used as an initial value for the next interval. The difference between
the controlled variable values obtained from the model and desired set point values for
each sampling time were squared and their sum was used as objective function to
minimize. As soon as the desired criteria had been obtained, optimization ended and
manipulated variable profile was obtained for 20 sampling intervals (i.e. control
horizon). The first value of the obtained manipulated variable profile was implemented
on the model as an actual control effort and the procedure was repeated for the next
interval until the final operation time was reached.
Table 1. Parameters for NN-MPC and NARMA-L2
Parameters NN-MPC NARMA-L2
Size of hidden layer 3 5
Training function Levenberg-Marquardt Levenberg-Marquardt
Training data normalized Normalized
Cost horizon (N2) 20 -
Control horizon (Nu) 2 -
Control weighting factor(ρ) 0.1 -
Search parameter (α) 0.1 -
1200 E. Akyurek et al.

3. Results and Discussion

In this study, the performances of six different control strategies were comparatively
evaluated for an activated sludge process through model simulations in MATLAB
environment. Dissolved oxygen level in the aeration tank was used as controlled
variable whereas the manipulated variable was the aeration rate. This decision was
based on the fact that the growth of biomass in the aeration tank is highly dependent on
dissolved oxygen concentration.
Selected set-point of dissolved oxygen concentration of the controller strongly
influences the performance of the plant. High DO levels in the aeration tank will cause
high energy consumption. On the other hand, substrate will not convert to biomass in
low DO concentration. In order to find the impact of the controller set points on plant
performance, a number of simulations with different set point values were performed.
During these simulations, effluent substrate concentration was taken as process
constraint. By the environmental regulations it must be below 30 mg/L. An optimal set-
point value of dissolved oxygen concentration was selected as 4 mg/L. Figure 2 shows
the comparison of the performances of the control strategies for a step change around
this optimal set point value. To determine the performance of the controllers, dissolved
oxygen set point value was changed from 3.43 to 4 mg/L. The obtained value of IAE,
ISA and rise time values are shown in Table 2.
The PID control strategy gives the largest overshoot (OS) value, 13.2 % as expected.
PID controller catches the set point in 12 hours. MPC controller with linear model gives
better response than the MPC controller with non-linear model. The rise time of these
controllers are 10 and 20 hours, respectively. NN-MPC’s rise time is 9 hours. NARMA-
L2 controller and SQP algorithms give much better responses than the others in terms of
rise time and overshoot. Both of these controllers employed non-linear model.
Dissolved oxygen concentration in NARMA-L2 controller and SQP algorithm reaches
the set point in 0.6 and 1 hour, respectively. Optimal control with SQP algorithm and
NARMA-L2 controller exhibit most adequate responses compared to other controllers
in terms of IAE and ISE performance criteria (Table 2).

Figure 2. Comparison of control strategies at optimal set-point value

Comparison of Control Strategies for Dissolved Oxygen Control in Activated Sludge
Wastewater Treatment Process 1201

Table 2. Comparison of Controllers in terms of IAE, ISE and Rise Time

Controller IAE ISE Rise time (h)
NARMA-L2 0.1018 0.0346 0.6
SQP 0.1820 0.0812 1.0
PID 0.3188 0.1241 12.0
NN-NMPC 0.7546 0.2508 9.0
Linear MPC 0.8668 0.3663 10.0
Nonlinear MPC 1.0046 0.3801 20.0

4. Conclusions
Six control strategies; PID control, MPC with linear model, MPC with non-linear
model, NARMA-L2 control, NN-MPC and optimal control with SQP algorithm were
evaluated for dissolved oxygen control in an exemplary activated sludge system. The
control objective was to keep effluent dissolved oxygen concentration at a certain value
by manipulating the aeration rate. Results were indicative of the conclusion that
NARMA-L2 controller and optimal control with SQP would outperform the others in
achieving the specified objective.

5. Acknowledgements
This work has been partially supported by the European Union FP6 project
INNOVA-MED (Contract No. INCO-CT-2006-517728), for which the authors are
grateful.

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