Intelligent Operation Support System for Activated Sludge Process

We have proposed the Intelligent Operation Support System (IOSS) for sewage plants, which can be applied to bulking prediction and control for the activated sludge process. The IOSS can provide guidance and control messages to operators on actions to take based on various kinds of integrated information including on-line process data, image signals on microorganisms, heuristics on plant control and data analyzed manually. To get on-line microorganism image information, a high resolution submerged microscope was developed and applied in a full scale plant. By combining image data with heuristics, the IOSS allows prediction of the symptoms of abnormal phenomena like bulking occurrence, and then provides ways to control the abnormalities thus decreasing the operators9 work loads. Furthermore, diagnosis methods for detecting sensor troubles are proposed. Simulation results indicate the IOSS is effective.