What is involved in the case of WAPSCIENCE is an international research and development project, supported through the sixth framework research programme of the European Union. With eight partners from five European countries the project had, as its aim, the development of a “low-cost” sensor combined with intelligent control and analysis processes.
New developments in metrology nowadays allow the production of reasonably-priced sensors for the most important operating parameters in wastewater technology, such as ammonium or nitrate. However, these sensors are still very susceptible to disturbances and external influences. In addition, their use requires a great deal of time to be spent on maintenance which results, accordingly, in additional costs. Within the context of the WAPSCIENCE project, research was carried out into how the aforementioned problems might be reduced or be suitably solved in practice. In so doing, priority was given to reducing costs during manufacture as well as when carrying out maintenance.
An investigation was carried out in parallel to find out how several sensors can be integrated into a holistic control concept and used to their best advantage. In doing so, use was made, in particular, of computational intelligence (CI) methods. The aim consisted of checking the measured values as to their plausibility, to monitor the operation of the plant automatically and to control it according to the operational situation.
