A knowledge-based distributed system for supervision and control of wastewater treatment processes

Abstract

This paper presents the hardware architecture and the software development of a real-time knowledge-based distributed control system for the supervision of a wastewater treatment pilot plant with biological removal of organic matter and nitrogen. A continuous monitoring of plant and controls data is used by an expert system developed in G2, a development environment based on object-oriented paradigm. A set of rules and procedures to help fault detection, plant maintenance, and nitrification - denitrification cycle operation was implemented and validated at pilot scale. The hardware architecture includes different supervision levels, including two autonomous process computers (plant control and analysers control).