Estimating element content in molten material at openings of metallurgical vessels

A system for estimating the content of a particular chemical element in molten material that is available at an opening of a metallurgical vessel, the system comprising:

• a pyrometer that is adapted to monitor the opening and to provide radiation data that represent the thermal radiation from the molten material at the opening, for at least two wavelengths;
• a camera that is adapted to monitor the opening or the path between the opening and the pyrometer, to provide one or more images showing the opening or the path;
• and
• a computer with a feature-enhancer module, an estimation module and with an image classification module,
• wherein the feature-enhancer module is adapted to process the radiation data to feature data according to a plurality of feature enhancement rules,
• wherein the enhancement rules refer to pre-processing radiation data to identify features in the time-series that are local characteristics, patterns in the curvature of the individual wavelength, the first deviation of the time-series, or the presence of inflection points,
• wherein the radiation data together with the feature data becomes feature-enhanced radiation data;
• wherein the estimation module is adapted to process the feature-enhanced radiation data with a regression model to provide an estimation with preliminary content data for the particular chemical element in the molten material, wherein the estimation module has been trained by training data collected during a data-collection phase, wherein the collected data is a combination of historical radiation data, and historical content data obtained by measurements on samples taken from the molten material at the opening, with the training data further comprising feature data that are identified according to the plurality of feature enhancement rules;
• and
• wherein the image classification module is adapted to classify the one or more images to identify phenomena at the opening or at the path, and to subsequently—according to the identified phenomena—provide a reliability classification for the radiation data, so that the computer outputs preliminary content data as content data only if the reliability classification complies with a pre-defined rule.