Automatic Monitoring and Control System of
Industrial Sewage Treatment
Weixuan Li
School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering
Wuhan University of Technology
Wuhan, China
jdch@whut.edu.cn
Abstract—Due to limitation of the energy, human should save
resources, even reuse the resources. In view of the serious
pollution of water resources, as well as the increasing reduction
of available water, sewage treatment becomes important issue to
be studied nowadays. In this paper, considering industrial waste
water processing procedures, utilize PLC, MCGS software as
well as PROFIBUS bus in order to carry out the monitoring and
control of sewage treatment.
Keywords-Technological process; Automatic control; PLC;
Field Bus; MCGS software
I. INTRODUCTION
With the rapid development of modern science and
technology, all the countries throughout the world are
developing industrial production. At the same time, water
resources are damaged more and more seriously. With the
improvement in the quality of people’s lives, human gradually
pay more attention on environmental protection, especially
industrial wastewater treatment has become a very important
research issue. At present, in our country, the protection of
water resources and sewage treatment are also not perfect
enough, although there have been a series of laws and
standards to protect resources, the contaminated water sources
must be processed in order to improve the quality of water
fundamentally.
Early sewage treatment technology mainly adopts on-site
detection and debugging by technicians. Because the sewage
treatment is complex, and the item indicators needing real-time
detection are various and complicated, for examples, the
effluent PH value, influent flow, dissolved oxygen content in
the aeration pool, and so on [1], if detect all indicators real time
one by one, it will cost too much labor and material, operation
cost is high, economic benefit is poor, and the result of process
is not ideal. As a result, computer monitoring is introduced to
the sewage treatment gradually, so that it saves resources,
improves security, reliability and treatment results greatly, and
has a wide development prospect. In this aspect, foreign
countries have developed a relatively perfect system,
comparatively speaking, development of the domestic
wastewater treatment technology compares relatively
backward. Therefore many of the large treatment plants adopt a
foreign system integrally, but considering the expensive is too
high, the development of auto-monitoring technology for
978-1-4244-2487-0/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE
Yuzhu Sun
School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering
Wuhan University of Technology
Wuhan, China
lovely-pig@163.com
domestic sewage treatment system is becoming a matter of
priority.
In this paper, study the process of monitoring system by
industrial wastewater, using computer control technology and
multi-level network structure to control the whole process of
wastewater treatment without man on duty [2].
II. TECHNOLOGICAL PROCESS OF SEWAGE TREATMENT
Related to wastewater treatment process, primary treatment
and secondary treatment adopt traditional physical-chemical
and biochemical processes, such as, sedimentation, aeration
and so on. But the specific selections for process base on
specific needs. Tertiary treatment can avoid eutrophication in
closed water area, and meet water quality standards of
reutilization of the sewage. Further more, advanced treatment
generally can make wastewater recycle. But industrial
wastewater, mainly adopt secondary treatment, and the
important steps in this process are as follows: grille for
desilting, the initial sedimentation tanks, serration tanks,
secondary sedimentation tanks, digestion pool.
Grille Grille initial sedimentation Serration
tough ul trafi ne tanks tanks
digestion secondary sedimentation
pool tanks
Figure 1. Technological process of wastewater treatment
Remove larger suspended solids such as, foam, plastics,
branches and so on through grille, and then fish pollution
automatically; the aeration tanks treat wastewater using
activated sludge, for this method can provide a stay to meet
the oxygen content needed by aerobic microbes, as well as
mixed conditions for sewage and activated sludge contacting
sufficiently.
 III. AUTOMATIC CONTROL SYSTEM
A. Principle for Control Systems Design
In order to identify the wastewater quality, and measure the
effect of treatment system, prescribe a lot of water quality
indicators, such as: BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), COD
(chemical oxygen demand), TOD (total oxygen demand),
turbidity, PH value, temperature and so on. Hence need to
measure these indicators for instance, water temperature, PH
value, BOD, COD, TOD, SS (suspended substance) and so on.
Then staff can control all switches running state, by comparing
the relevant measured values and assumed values. Because this
system needs not only to control the process, but also to make
convenience for detecting, displays should be set at the scene
and in the control centre respectively. At different sites, data
should be transmitted by field bus networks. Although the
wireless sensor network technology has greatly reduced the
number of cables and the environmental requirements, the
relatively more advanced technology is more expensive, and
nowadays can not be used widely [3]. In this paper, choosing
relatively traditional methods of measurement, study sewage
treatment system from the standpoints of improving control
level and facilitating the staff operating.
B. Modules of Control System
There are signals to be detected, as well as valves, switches,
motors and pumps, and so on, to be controlled, in each process.
Considering every module, formulate their own control
processes and realization method according to respective
technology and performance requirements.
For example, in the basin of grid for desilting, set the
parameters according to the water volume of processing plant.
When the liquid level difference between before and after grids
is greater than or equal to the set parameter, the grid can
implement chain startup and stop automatically. As a result, the
ultrasonic liquid-level meter should be set before and after the
grids, and then staff can control grids starting and stopping by
PLC.
State
Switches Extracti ng
PLC
control l i ng gri ds sedi ments
Li qui d-l evel
di fference
Figure 2. Control system for grids
In the module of initial sedimentation tanks, install
electromagnetic flow meter in its influent pipes to measure
influent flow, and then show the value on displays. According
to technology requirements, set liquid-level value of
pretreatment intake pump, further then control all intake pump
running state, in order to keep all pumps running the relative
balanced time. Install PH meter to measure PH value of the
instant water coming-in, so as to respond the coming-in water
quality whether or not to meet the process requirements, if not,
then give off warning signal, at the same time, close the inset
gate.
Install oxidation reducing potential (ORP) on-line
determinator, dissolved oxygen (DO) on-line determinator, and
sludge density monitor in the serration tanks. The detected
values of ORP and DO decide the number of blowers and
aeration intensity, so that can save resources. When the sludge
density is relative high, in a timely manner, system will reduce
the sludge quantity of reflux in secondary sedimentation tanks,
and increase emission amount of sludge; when the density is
low, to some degree, will increase the sludge quantity of reflux.
Set one mud meter in the secondary sedimentation tank,
which can measure mud-level on-line. When the value is on the
high side, can adjust mud sucker and scraper, sludge discharge
pumps and so on automatically, in order to avoid sediment
sludge corrupting as well as piling up too much by discharging
remaining sludge.
At last, in the final digestion pool, install one PH meter,
COD on-line determinator, and sludge density monitor. At the
same time, display these data, so that staff can take the water
quality in control at any time, and then determine whether or
not the effluent water targets the standard.
C. The Whole Hardware System
PLC is a new type of industrial control devices, which can
adapt to varieties of small batch production, and it developed
very quickly. Due to its general and flexible control
performance, it is applied in all the field of industrial
automation widely, with its reliability of adapting to a variety
of industrial environment and simple and convenient
operational performance. As a kind of digital electronic
computing operating system, it is designed for the industrial
environment applications specially. PLC adopt programmable
memory to store and implement the orders for Boolean
calculation, sequence control, timing, counting, arithmetic
operation, etc, and control various types of equipment and
production process though digital or analog input and output
interfaces [4]. Therefore, select S7-300 series PLC as the main
lower computer.
The functions of the PLC mainly represent switch logic,
sequence control, analog control, signal chain, and
communications. It can acts as a lower computer, which can
communicate with PC or PLC having the same level or upper
level, in order to complete information control and
management for the whole production process.
Modulefor IPCindustrial
PLCmodule display
detectingsignal computer
Figure 3. Hardware block diagram for control system
PLC main station can be connected upper computer, then,
can display graphics, analyze trends, manage data, diagnose
fault, control warning, etc, with high-level language
programming. Furthermore PLC and IPC can constitute a
powerful open distributed control system. Here IPC industrial
computer choose Advantech 610.

D. Selection for Control Methods Start

Sewage treatment is a multivariable, nonlinear,
time-varying, random, and complex process, and traditional
control method is difficult to achieve real-time monitoring and Ini ti al
detecting. In recent years, sewage treatment generally adopts system
intelligent control, which mainly concludes fuzzy control,
neural network, expert control, and so on. In this paper, choice Data acqui si ti on
of methods to control is expert system intelligent control.
and processi ng
Based on different operating characteristics of modules, and the
different characteristics of the different stages, can use different
control methods, so as to achieve the best effect. Complete the Real -ti me data
whole control and projections for sewage treatment process, refreshi ng and buffer
with the knowledge of experts, through intelligent computer
program system [5].
N
W
arni ng?
E. Field Bus
Due to the relatively decentralized function modules, Y
develop the technology of field bus, which is an advanced Warni ng
on-site industrial technology, and really achieve distributed processi ng
control and centralized management. In view of the need for
system, real-time, reliability, and relative stabilities for load
under fault and load in transport have a higher requirement, so Data
select PROFIBUS field bus as communications network preservi ng
between PLC and IPC, which use RS-485 as transmission
technology the most frequently [6]. Cal l i ng
subrouti ne

IV. SOFTWARE DESIGN OF SYSTEM

This upper computer software to monitor system use
MCGS, which is a configuration software system based on Control l i ng Control l i ng
windows platform, and used to construct and generate upper Control l i ng Control l i ng
gri d gri d
computer system quickly [7]. MCGS provide a complete l i f t pump bl ower
project and development platform for users to solve (rough) (ul traf i ne)
opportunity engineering problems, and can complete functions,
such as, on-site data acquisition, real-time and historical data Control l i ng
processing, warning, security mechanism, process control, sl udge Control l i ng
animation display, output of trend curve and report forms, as di scharge val ve
well as corporate monitoring network and so on. Moreover it is equi pments
easy to operate, and has good visibility, high reliability, high
performance, and other prominent features, so it is suitable for
sewage treatment.
N
In this system, the main function designed as follows: Loggi ng
making configuration for PLC control strategy of the out
processing modules that can take convenience for staff to
change operation states and system parameters in time; Y
showing liquid level value, running time, PH value, ORP
measurements, DO measurements, mud density and so on W
i thdrawal
dynamically and real-time, as well as the operating states and
working methods of every equipment; displaying screen and
alarming with light and sound [8]; providing selections for Figure 4. Software block diagram for system
working style, such as automatic and manual operation
interface; querying historical data; intranet connection.
 V. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Based on the sewage treatment process, in view of its
control requirements, establish control system on the basic of
combination of PLC and IPC industrial computer. Through
detected liquid level, mud density, OD value, ORP value and
other signals, control running state and operating time of lift
pumps, valves, blowers, sludge discharge equipments, grille for
desilting and so on, in order to ensure water quality standards
to meet the demand. At the same time, the use of MCGS
configuration software develops real-time monitoring system
operated automatically or manually, so as to have saving data,
detecting, warning, querying historical data, and other
functions full of humanness.
REFERENCES
[1] Tao Ma, “Automatic control system in urban sewage treatment,”
Chinese papers download center, 2006
[2] Jiang Li, Xianyao Meng,Guanglai Bai, “Computer control system for
Sewage disposing of steel manufactory,” Dalian Maritime University,
2005
[3] Jingwen Tian,Hao Wu, Meijuan Gao, ”Measurement and Control
System of Sewage Treatment Based on Wireless Sensor Networks,”
IEEE㧘 2008
[4] Zhonghua Gong, “S7-200/300/400PLC applications----general part,”
posts & telecom press, 2007
[5] Taijie Liu,Lifeng Cui,Zaiwen Liu, ”Development of intelligent control
of wastewater treatmentˈ” Beijing technology and business university
(Natural science reported), 2005
[6] Hongbin Gao,Meijing Kong, Menghe He, “Siemens PLC control and
industrial networking applications,” Pushing house of electronics
industry, 2006
[7] Zuoming Wu, ”Industrial PLC and configuration software applications,”
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2006
[8] Dongming Yu,Xiangming Wang, ”Research on computer monitoring
system for sewage treatment,” Industrial Measurement, 2002