The quality of the effluent from an activated sludge aeration tank can deteriorate when the substrate removal rate decreases due to an abrupt reduction in the DO concentration, which is affected by such operating conditions as the loading rate, temperature, wastewater composition, and so on. In this research, a DO control system that includes a PI (proportional-integral) controller/Hiraoka controller was developed and applied to a pilot-scale activated sludge process, then its acceptability was estimated. The applicability of the respiration rate to DO control was also estimated. The respiration rate indicated a variety of input organic loading rates, which is the main disturbance to the DO concentration in an aeration tank. When the influent concentration incrementally decreased and increased between CODcr 1,000 mg/l and 100 mg/l, the control system with a PI controller exhibited a good llperformance-the average DO concentrations were 2.00$pm$0.14 mg/l and 1.88$pm$0.15 mg/l (set value was 2.0 mg/l), respectively, and the settling time was just 10 minites. When the control system was operated for 4 days, the DO concentration was 1.99$pm$0.18 mg/l and 32.6% of the air flowrate was saved. However, the fluctuations in the respiration rates and air flowrates were severe, which could be harmful to the stability of the biomass and mechanical stability of the blower. A possible approach to solve this problem may be the simultaneous control of the loading rate and DO concentration.