Identification and Control of a Cascade of Biochemical Reactors

This paper presents identification and controller design for the wastewater treatment plant. This model is represented by a cascade of ten biochemical reactors. The process was identified by the linear model in the form of a transfer function and also a state-space representation. These models were used to design three types of controllers. Starting with the design of the simple PI and PID controllers, the paper then describes the MPC controller setup and the Neural-Network based controller, the last two belonging to the group of advanced controllers. The whole process, from identification, through the controller design to simulations, was realized in Matlab. Simulation results obtained using advanced controllers were compared with the results ensured by PID controllers and they confirmed the significant improvement of the control performance, which is also confirmed by the ISE control quality indicator.