Soft-sensing Technique for Wastewater
A
Treatment Based on BP and RBF Neural Networks
GUAN Qiu, WANG Wan-liang, CHEN Sheng-yong, XU Xin-lin
College of Information Engineering,
Zhejiang University of Technology,
HANGZHOU, 310014, China
Email: {gq, wwl, csy, xxl}@zjut.edu.cn
Abstract - With the modern industry, the water resources which
are essential for human survival have been greatly destroyed.
With the goal of managing wastewater effectively, economically,
and ecologically, scientists have been working years for the
simplicity and effectiveness of a wastewater treatment system.
However, the quality parameters of wastewater treatment
usually cannot be detected on line or otherwise the
measurement meters are very expensive. In this paper, the
soft-sensing method based on the combined back-propagation
(BP) and radial basis function (RBF) neural networks is
proposed to solve this problem. Wastewater treatment
technique is analyzed systematically. BOD, COD, N and P
which cannot be detected on-line are taken as the primary
variables. ORP, DO, PH and MLSS which can be detected
on-line are taken as the secondary variables. Neutral network
for soft-sensing is proposed and trained using the testing data
of practical treatment,processes. The simulation results show
that the soft-sensing system of wastewater treatment based on
BP and RBF neural networks can correctly estimate the quality
parameters in real time.
I. INTRODUCTION
Water is one of the most important resources of the world
and it is a matter of caring for our environment and for our
own health. There are a lot of good reasons why keeping our
water adequate and clean is an important priority. Modem
industry wastewater is destroying the water resource very
seriously which is human's subsistence, so the process
control of wastewater treatment has been a critical study
issue in these years. The technology of fuzzy control has
been successfully applied in feed-water treatment in Japan,
anaerobic digestion treatment in U.S.A.,Sequencing Batch
Reactor (SBR) in Australian and so on.
However, since the wastewater quality parameters usually
cannot be detected on-line or the indirect measurement
meters are very expensive, only open-loop control was taken
in these methods. This greatly affects the control capability
and efficiency. Therefore, how to gain the wastewater
quality parameters on-line for carrying out close-loop
control is the key to improve the control effectiveness.
The soft-measurement technology applies the computer to
measure some important primary variables (which are hard
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or cannot be measured in real time) by means of some easy
measured variables (secondary variables). In nature, this
method makes use of software's calculation to substitute for
the sensor's fimction. Its response is rapid and primary
variables' information can be continuously provided and
meanwhile the meter's cost is very low. In this paper, the
soft-sensing method based on neural network for wastewater
treatment is proposed with the application of modem
artificial intelligence technology for resolving the real-time
detecting problem of wastewater treatment process.
II. WASTEWATER TREATMENT PROCESS AND QUALITY
PARAMETERS
For many years people have been put forward conceming
the wastewater treatment problem and proposed many
methods. The SBR is the one method used very widely
because of its many advantages: simple, high efficiency,
good nitrogen and phosphate removal* 'effect, property
against sludge expansibility, impact-load endurance, etc.
The SBR process is made up of aeration tank, clarification
tank, sludge circulation, excess sludge removal, return
sludge and etc. The system structure is illustrated in Fig. 1.
Wastewater and returned activated sludge come into the
aeration tank together and form mixed liquor, then air is
filled into aeration tank through the aeration equipment.
The oxygen consumed metabolic reaction will take place in
the mixture due to the oxygen dissolved in the wastewater.
The liquid will be in a suspending state after being stirred up
enough. Then the liquor flows into the secondary clarifier,
where the suspended solid (SS) separates from the water.
The water that outflows the tank is purified water. Most of
the sludge return to aeration tank and become returned
sludge. The function of the returned sludge is to keep certain
concentration of SS, that is, to keep certain concentration of
microbes [1].
The polluting materials which wastewater contains are
various, whose main targets fall into three categories:
physical, chemical and biological. According to the organic
pollutants in the water, the main harm is that they consume
the dissolved oxygen (DO) in the water. In practice, the
biochemistry oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen
demand (COD) and so on are usually used as the main
 air
unstable control since ORP is very sensitive. Furthermore,
it also cannot well reflect the whole treatment process
I rn Water (organic matter, nitrogen and phosphate removal) if either
Waler inflow utlet DO, PH or MLSS is used alone. These parameters must
Aeration tank Scnayote
clarIfier be used altogether to the control process in order to get
the most satisfactory results. Therefore, ORP, DO, PH
retumed sludge and MLSS are taken as the main parameters to indirectly
excess sludgei' control the wastewater treatment process.
Fig. 1 The Basic SBR Process B. System Structure
targets to reflect the content of organic materials oxygen In this paper, the soft-sensing technology is applied to
demand in water. According to the growth of field crops, solve the problem of real-time estimation of wastewater
although nitrogen and phosphorous are plant nutrition treatment process. BOD, COD, N and P which cannot be
elements, too much nitrogen and phosphorus contained in detected on-line are taken as the primary variables. ORP,
the water will cause water eutrophication. Therefore, BOD, DO, PH and MLSS which can be detected on-line are taken
COD, N(nitrogen) and P(phosphorus) have become the as the secondary variables. For comparing two different
important parameters reflecting the water quality. kinds of neural networks performance on sewage treatment's
soft-sensing, a three-layer BP and RBF neural network as
illustrated in Figure 2 is established by using the
soft-sensing technology of ANN[2]. The soft-sensing of
COD, BOD, nitrogen, phosphorus and so on is realized
according to the two neural networks. Accordingly, water
inflow quality, aeration amount and reacting time can be
A ~~~~~~COD evaluated and the water outlet quality will be controlled and
N thus it provides the means of the real-time control of
p
wastewater treatment [4].
The experiment data of MLSS and P has not been
obtained due to the available experiment conditions.
Fig.2 Neural Network for Soft-sensing of Wastewater Treatment Therefore, the three parameters ORP, DO, PH are taken as
the input neurons, and BOD, COD, NH3-N and N03-N are
taken as the three output neurons. The structure of BPNN
III. THE NEURAL NETWORK SOFT-SENSING SYSTEM
and RBF NN used in experiment are shown in Figure 3 and
Figure 4, respectively.
A. Measuring Parameters
A most suitable way to regulate and control the reaction
(aeration) time is to monitor the change of BOD (or COD)
concentration in water outlet. However, it is very complex
and time-consuming to measure COD (especially the BOD)
in the wastewater. The time spent on detecting greatly lags
to the operating time in practice. Thus, the results cannot
reflect the real situation in time. At present, although there is
COD concentration on-line detector, the problem of lagging,
mistakes and high price still exist. Fig.3 BPNN based on experiment data for wastewater treatment
The SBR is a continuous recycling process, i.e.
"aerobic-anaerobic- aerobic-anaerobic-...". Its DO
and ORP can regulate the aeration amount during the
aerobic process. PH indicates whether the passivity is
suitable and whether it is beneficial to the growth of
microbes. In the anaerobic process, character, points of PH
and ORP can not only show the anti-nitration silicon source
and the casting amount.
After analysis of the wastewater property or the
indistinct difference and characteristics of DO, we find Fig.4 BFNN Based on Experiment Data for Soft-sensing of
that if ORP is used alone, minor errors will result in Wastewater Treatnent

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Fig. 5 Comparison of BPNN Simulation
IV. TRAINING AND TESTING OF THE SOFT-SENSING SYSTEM
In the light of the soft-sensing requirement for wastewater
treatment quality parameter, this paper analyzed the
wastewater treatment process in our experiments and got the
typical data sets. Practically, 27 groups of data are measured,
of which 22 are for training and 5 for testing. The results
reflected the complicated relationships among wastewater
treatment quality parameters. The simulation results are
shown in Figure 5 (BPNN) and Figure 6 (RBFNN).
The curves with symbol marks in Figure 5 are the data of
wastewater treatment process while those without any marks
are the results of the network training. The curve with the
symbol IS is the NH3-N in the wastewater treatment process.
The curve with the symbol Ol represents the change of BOD.
The curve with * is the change of nitric nitrogen. In the
actual process, the quality of BOD is generally 40% that of
COD. Hence, it is feasible to known the operation of COD
by observing the BOD curve.
As Figure 5 shows the results of network training
coincide with those of practical wastewater treatment.
Therefore, it can be safely said that the soft-sensing system
of wastewater treatment based on BP neural network is
capable of effectively resolving the problem of real-time
estimation of quality parameters in wastewater treatment.
Similarly in Figure 6, the symbol marks IS, a, and +
123
represent NH3-N, COD, and nitric nitrogen, respectively.
The plotted curves illustrate the results of network training
coincide with those of wastewater treatment in practice.
Therefore, together with Figure 5 the soft-sensing system
based on BP and RBF neural network is capable of
effectively resolving the problem quality parameters
real-time estimation in wastewater treatment.
V. CONCLUSION
The water pollution is one of the factors that hold back
the development of human beings. The major aim of
wastewater treatment is to remove as much of the suspended
solids as possible before the remaining water is discharged
back to the environment. How to prevent the water from
being further polluted and apply efficient wastewater
treatment has been one of the main tasks that must be
undertaken. This paper proposed the soft-sensing method for
wastewater treatment based on BP and RBF neural network.
The method has important theoretical meaning and
application value to the further development of various
real-time control methods of SBR. The preliminary
investigation results show that the soft-sensing technique of
wastewater treatment based on BPNN and RBFNN is very
helpful to improve the reliability of the system and save the
energy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (NSFC No.60374056 and 60405009)
by Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation (ZJNSF
No.Y104185) and the Zhejiang Provincial Educational
Committee of China.
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BR Process for Brewage Wastewater Treatment", Water & Wastewater
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[3] GAO Jingfeng, PENG Yong-Zhen, etc., "Using Dissolved Oxygen,
Oxidation Reduction Potential and pH value for control Nitrogen
removal in SBR Process", China Water & Wastewater, vol.17, no.4,
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[4] Wang Wanliang, Ren Min, "Soft-sensing Method for Wastewater
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Treatment Based on RBF Neural Network," Poc. of
CNNC2004,2004,10:259-263