Image analysis and vision systems for processing plants

Material flowing in a processing plant may be visually observable, but its characterization by physical and computational means of analysis can prove difficult. Problems are encountered in practice both at optical imaging and at extraction of features that characterize the material or its stage of processing, and at related control of the process. Intelligent analysis of the vast amount of data provided by process vision systems is discussed in the paper, in the light of two continuous flow processes, i.e. the froth flotation of minerals and the wet end control of a paper machine.