The COST benchmark simulation model - current state and future perspective

The paper introduces the philosophy and current status of a benchmark for the evaluation of control strategies in wastewater treatment plants and also the forthcoming developments and future perspectives. The work has been carried out within the framework of two COST Actions (682 and 624) and in close collaboration with the IWA Task Group on Respirometry. The benchmark is a platform-independent simulation environment defining a plant layout, a simulation model, influent loads, test procedures and evaluation criteria. Several different research teams have contributed to the development of the benchmark and have obtained results using several simulation platforms (GPS-X(TM), MATLAB/SIMULINK(TM), SIMBA(R), WEST(R), FORTRAN code, etc.). A short introduction to the six scientific papers of this special section dealing with various aspects of the COST benchmark simulation model is also given. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.