Segmentation of Activated Sludge Flocs in Microscopic Images for Monitoring Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

The proposed work describes an approach for segmentation of activated sludge flocs from the microscopic images for monitoring wastewater treatment. The morphological features of flocs (microbial aggregates) and filaments are related to the state of an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant and must be monitored for proper functioning. Hence, image processing and analysis could be a time-saving monitoring tool. To address this challenge, we propose a novel framework involving a multiphase edge detection algorithm based on information theory. The proposed framework is evaluated and scrutinized critically considering the artifacts found in the photographs tested. To evaluate the segmentations, gold approximation of estimated truth images is created. In addition, the performance was subjectively evaluated for its potential for segmenting activated sludge images. Experimental results show that the proposed framework exhibits the good results and demonstrates its effectiveness.