Real-Time Control of A2O Process in Wastewater Treatment Through Fast Deep Reinforcement Learning Based on Data-Driven Simulation Model

Real-time control (RTC) can be applied to optimize the operation of the anaerobic–anoxic–oxic (A2O) process in wastewater treatment for energy saving. In recent years, many studies have utilized deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to construct a novel AI-based RTC system for optimizing the A2O process. However, existing DRL methods require the use of A2O process mechanistic models for training. Therefore they require specified data for the construction of mechanistic models, which is often difficult to achieve in many wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) where data collection facilities are inadequate. Also, the DRL training is time-consuming because it needs multiple simulations of mechanistic model. To address these issues, this study designs a novel data-driven RTC method. The method first creates a simulation model for the A2O process using LSTM and an attention module (LSTM-ATT). This model can be established based on flexible data from the A2O process. The LSTM-ATT model is a simplified version of a large language model (LLM), which has much more powerful ability in analyzing time-sequence data than usual deep learning models, but with a small model architecture that avoids overfitting the A2O dynamic data. Based on this, a new DRL training framework is constructed, leveraging the rapid computational capabilities of LSTM-ATT to accelerate DRL training. The proposed method is applied to a WWTP in Western China. An LSTM-ATT simulation model is built and used to train a DRL RTC model for a reduction in aeration and qualified effluent. For the LSTM-ATT simulation, its mean squared error remains between 0.0039 and 0.0243, while its R-squared values are larger than 0.996. The control strategy provided by DQN effectively reduces the average DO setpoint values from 3.956 mg/L to 3.884 mg/L, with acceptable effluent. This study provides a pure data-driven RTC method for the A2O process in WWTPs based on DRL, which is effective in energy saving and consumption reduction. It also demonstrates that purely data-driven DRL can construct effective RTC methods for the A2O process, providing a decision-support method for management.