Data-driven intelligent monitoring system for key variables in wastewater treatment process

In wastewater treatment process (WWTP), the accurate and real-time monitoring values of key variables are crucial for the operational strategies. However, most of the existing methods have difficulty in obtaining the real-time values of some key variables in the process. In order to handle this issue, a data-driven intelligent monitoring system, using the soft sensor technique and data distribution service, is developed to monitor the concentrations of effluent total phosphorous (TP) and ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N). In this intelligent monitoring system, a fuzzy neural network (FNN) is applied for designing the soft sensor model, and a principal component analysis (PCA) method is used to select the input variables of the soft sensor model. Moreover, data transfer software is exploited to insert the soft sensor technique to the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. Finally, this proposed intelligent monitoring system is tested in several real plants to demonstrate the reliability and effectiveness of the monitoring performance.