Prediction of sludge bulking using the knowledge-leverage-based fuzzy neural network

Abstract

One of the most important steps and the main bottleneck of the activated sludge wastewater treatment process (WWTP) is the secondary clarification, where sludge bulking is still a widespread problem. In this paper, an intelligent method, based on a knowledge-leverage-based fuzzy neural network (KL-FNN), is developed to predict sludge bulking online. This proposed KL-FNN can make full use of the data and the existing knowledge from the operation of WWTP. Meanwhile, a transfer learning mechanism is applied to adjust the parameters of the proposed method to improve the predicting accuracy. Finally, this proposed method is applied to a real wastewater treatment plant for predicting the sludge bulking risk, and then for predicting the sludge bulking. The experimental results indicate that the proposed prediction method can be used as a tool to achieve better performance and adaptability than the existing methods in terms of predicting accuracy for sludge bulking.