Device and method for controlling a reheating furnace

A device for controlling a furnace for reheating iron and steel products having an inlet and an outlet in a reeling-off direction of the product, comprising:

• an infrared camera provided to form an infrared image of an upper face of a product over the width and at least partially over the length thereof when said product is arranged on a predetermined discharging surface;
• a digital processing module arranged to carry out binarization of the infrared image into two classes of pixels, one class of pixels that corresponds to the pixels associated with the presence of scale that is bonded on the face of the product and the other class of pixels that corresponds to the pixels associated with the presence of scale that is not bonded on the face of the product;
• a module for determining the amounts of non-bonded scale and of bonded scale on the upper face of the product on the basis of the binarized image;
• a module for modifying furnace control parameters on the basis of the determined amounts of non-bonded scale and of bonded scale.