Hardbound. Changing market conditions leading to increased competitiveness, higher quality control, reduced costs and greater capacity mean that the development and automation in mining and in mineral and metal processing is facing challenging times. The Symposium reflects the growing need amongst mining and related industries to improve and develop their automated systems to tackle those new challenges. The papers provide essential information covering areas such as mining, electric furnaces, steel, blast furnaces, rolling and computer applications.

Approx. 482 pages

Hardbound. The purpose of the Symposium was to exchange ideas and approaches relating to the latest development of factory automation in mining, mineral and metal processing. This volume begins with the four plenary papers, concerning the automation of mineral processes, automation in iron and steel industries, sensor technology and artificial intelligence technique. 38 technical papers are included, covering mining and mineral automation, blast furnace automation, steel making automation, MIS & CIMS in the steel industry and measuring technique.

Within the metal and mining industries, the use of expert systems for monitoring and control is on the increase. The content of each paper had to include both expert systems, neural networks or fuzzy control. The papers were evenly contributed from industry, universities and research institutes, thus this book provides a valuable insight into the theoretical as well as the practical applications currently in use within the industry.

This volume presents state-of-the-art reports on the theory, and current and future applications of control of distributed parameter systems. The papers cover the progress not only in traditional methodology and pure research in control theory, but also the rapid growth of its importance for different applications. This title will be of interest to researchers working in the areas of mathematics, automatic control, computer science and engineering.

The papers presented at the Symposium covered the areas in aerospace technology where automatic control plays a vital role. These included navigation and guidance, space robotics, flight management systems and satellite orbital control systems. The information provided reflects the recent developments and technical advances in the application of automatic control in space technology.

Papers presented at the workshop are representative of the state-of-the art of artificial intelligence in real-time control. The issues covered included the use of AI methods in the design, implementation, testing, maintenance and operation of real-time control systems. While the focus was on the fundamental aspects of the methodologies and technologies, there were some applications papers which helped to put emerging theories into perspective. The four main subjects were architectural issues; knowledge - acquisition and learning; techniques; and scheduling, monitoring and management.