Nonlinear model predictive control of the wastewater treatment plant

Sustainable development of the modern society implies special care of the water resources and their efficient management. The biological Wastewater Treatment (WWT) plants play a major role for preserving the health of the environment. This work presents alternatives for the design of the control system for the aerobic suspended growth wastewater treatment plant. Model Predictive Control (MPC) of the WWT plant soluble substrate and dissolved oxygen are investigated in the presence of typical disturbances. The proposed combination of feedback-feedforward MPC control design improves the control performance, compared to traditional control or simple feedback MPC, for both disturbance rejection and setpoint tracking. The control performance presents short settling time and reduced overshoot for the multivariable approach of MPC with output and manipulated variables constraints, showing benefits for industrial implementation.