Image analysis based control of zinc flotation - a multi-camera approach

In this paper a new multi-camera set-up is introduced to improve the controllability of a zinc flotation process. The multi-camera system can analyze the froth appearance simultaneously from six flotation cells. The froth appearance is characterized with twelve different parameters that are calculated separately for each cell, and these parameters are used to control the flotation process in real-time. The development of this system was motivated by a single-camera system that has been shown in practice to improve considerably both the grade and recovery of the zinc circuit.