Design and Real Time Implementation of an Intelligent Bioreactor Control Scheme

Effective bioprocessing is often hindered by a lack of detailed knowledge about system dynamics and by the lack of appropriate sensors. The design and implementation of control strategies for bioreactors requires that all available information about the process be considered. When knowledge about process dynamics is incomplete, additional useful information is available from past data trends, expert process operators and the research literature. In this work, an expert system based bioreactor control scheme is developed and evaluated. The expert system supervisor utilizes on-line real-time data as well as archived data, facts and heuristic information to analyze the process checking for data consistency, equipment failure and realization of process goals. The results of an analysis are then used to suggest and implement an acceptable control procedure to help achieve a desired goal. The behavior and performance of some aspects of a real-time implementation of the expert system controller to Clostridium acetobutylicum will be presented and discussed.