Agent-based control system for sustainable wastewater treatment process

Abstract

Biotechnological processes are difficult to control; many different state trajectories can be obtained from the same starting conditions. A well-known process of this class encountered in the industry is the wastewater treatment process with activated sludge. In this case, the quality of process control has a strong direct impact on the natural environment. Moreover, the crucial components of the processes are living organisms, which require appropriate actions to be taken to ensure their sustainability. This paper describes the agent-based approach to the operating control tasks for the process. The implemented control system is described, which is based on a real-time agent communication protocol implementing a blackboard knowledge system. Additional functionalities of the control system include the support for a cooperation between multiple experimenters, and on-line real-time modelling of the system providing the aid in a decision making. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.