Automatic Control in Mineral Processing Plants: an Overview.

Daniel Hodouin

Department of Mining, Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering, Laval University,

Québec City, G1V 0A6, Canada

e-mail: daniel.hodouin@gmn.ulaval.ca

Abstract: For controlling a process, one should not forget that for strongly disturbed, poorly modeled
and difficult to measure processes, such as those involved in the mineral processing industry, the
peripheral tools of the control loop (fault detection and isolation system, data reconciliation procedure,
observers, soft sensors, optimizers, model parameter tuners…) are as important as the controller itself.
The paper briefly describes each element of this generalized control loop, while putting emphasis on the
mineral processing specific cases.
Keywords: Mineral Processing, Grinding, Flotation, Optimization, Control, Soft Sensors, Data
Reconciliation.

1. INTRODUCTION 2. PROCESSES OF THE MP INDUSTRY

This document gives a short overview on the control methods
that are available or practically used in mineral processing
(MP) plants (Hodouin et al. (2001)). A brief description of
the chain of processes involved in MP plants is first given.
Then a general control scheme is proposed and the various
ingredients of a control loop are described, illustrating each
element or concept by an example. The paper starts with
recalling the various process variables which are involved
when controlling a MP process. Then most usual control
objectives are formulated. An important aspect of MP control
is the measurement processing. Following the classical
statement ‘Garbage in, garbage out’ this is a critical step in
MP since the processes are inherently stochastic and difficult
to model, and the measurements quite inaccurate, while the
most important variables are not measurable on-line.
Methods such as soft sensors, data reconciliation, fault
detection, feature extraction from images are presented. A
summary of the available linear controllers is then given
focusing on model-based predictive controllers. Finally the
optimization block is discussed. It calculates optimal set-
points to be fed to the controllers.
Although the presentation scope is quite large, a limited
number of references have been proposed. However a book
edited by Sbarbaro and del Villar (2009) will soon be
available which will detail many aspects presented here and
will offer a wider literature survey. Also, a recent survey by
Thwaites (2007) gives the industrial point of view on MP
automation needs.
2.1 MP chain of processes
A raw ore cannot be used as such as a final product for
industrial or commercial uses. It needs to be treated for
preparing a usable material that can be either a specific
mineral, as it is in the orebody, or more usually a metal, an
alloy, or a compound such as an oxide. Although the steps of
the chain of transformation which leads to the final metal is a
technically coherent sequence of processes, the present study
is mainly focused on physical treatments of ores (grinding
and flotation) leaving chemical transformations involved in
hydro-, pyro-, and electro-metallurgy for other
communications, with the exception of an example on gold
ore cyanidation. However, most of the control structures and
tools presented here are also valid for extractive metallurgy.
The aim of an MP operation is to concentrate a raw ore for
the subsequent metal extraction stage. Usually, the valuable
minerals are first liberated from the ore matrix by
comminution and size separation processes, and then
separated from the gangue using processes capable of
selecting the particles according to their physical or chemical
properties, such as surface hydrophobicity, specific gravity,
magnetic susceptibility, and colour. The processes to be
controlled in MP can thus be classified into three different
categories:
• Minerals liberation processes (crushing, grinding and
size classification)
• Minerals separation processes (flotation, magnetic or
gravimetric separation, sorting, leaching…)
• Peripheral processes such as feeders, pumps, conveyors,
thickeners, dryers and systems for concentrate shipping,

IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.

 tailings disposal, mine backfilling, effluent treatment, controlled ones. The latter are process states that are
reagent dosage… dependent on the control and disturbance inputs. For
Figure 1 shows a simplified scheme of an MP plant process illustrating this decomposition, which may vary from plant to
chain, with its general production objective. plant and may depend upon the control architecture, variables
are defined below for grinding and flotation processes.
R E G R IN D IN G REJECT
M i n in g
ORE
L IB E R A T E D
M IN E R A L S
S E P A R A T IO N
G R IN D I N G CO NCENTR A TE
PR O C ESS
P R O C ESS

M A X IM I Z E : C ON CEN TRA TE O P E R A T IN G
m in u s
V ALUE COSTS

Fig. 1. Simplified chain of processes in MP plants and

production objective. Fig. 2. Generic names of input-output process variables.

2.2 Process variables
For a systematic presentation of the different tools of the
generalized control loop, it is useful to define the status and
notation of each input and output process variable. Figure 2
gives the nomenclature: u is used for the manipulated
variables (control variables), y for the controlled variables, d
for the disturbances, and x for other output variables than the
Example 1: Grinding circuit. Figure 3 shows the main
variables that are usually considered in a closed grinding
circuit..
Example 2: Flotation circuit. The variables for a typical
flotation circuit consisting of rougher, scavenger and cleaner
units with recycling streams is considered in Figure 4.

Fig. 3. Process variables for a closed grinding circuit.

d
u y

Fig. 4. Process variables for a flotation plant.

IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.


2.3 Process modeling
The tools of the generalized control loop are based on process
models. The models are usually different for the various tools
in the loop: controllers, observers and optimizers, since each
model is built for specific purposes. The model can be
empirical (regression, neural-network or transfer function
types), or phenomenological (taking account of reaction and
transformation mechanisms), steady-state or dynamic,
deterministic or stochastic, based on mathematical equations,
or fuzzy rules , linear or non-linear … The optimizer model
can be based on a phenomenological simulator, the control
and disturbance models on transfer matrices, the
reconciliation model on mass and energy conservation
constraints, and the predictor model on ARMA equations.
The focus in this paper is put on traditional mathematical
models, since it is believed that this still is the most efficient
way to mimic a process behavior. Techniques for selecting
model structures and tuning the parameters are described in
many publications and textbooks (for instance Ljung (1999)).
2.4 Instrumentation
There are two aspects in the design of an instrumentation
system for a MP plant: 1) the availability of measuring
devices; 2) the strategy of sensor selection and placement to
obtain the information required by the controller and
optimizer (Bagajewicz (2001)).
Measurement of ore composition, particle size distribution
and flowrates is central in the control of MP operations.
Adequate instrumentation is available. Particle size in the fine
size range can be mechanically measured, or inferred through
physical phenomena such as laser diffraction or ultra-sound
absorption. In the coarse size range, video images of the
flowing particulate material are processed to extract
information on particle size. X-ray fluorescence is the
universal method for on-line solid composition measurement
in MP plants. The sampling procedure is critical, since the
very small quantity of ore to be analysed must be
representative of tons of an inherently heterogeneous material
(Mirabedini and Hodouin, 1998). Less ore specific properties
such as levels, motor power, rotation speed, pH, slurry
density, pressures, are also measurable with a variety of
equipments. However, essential properties such as
grindability, mineral texture, liberation degree (Barbery
(1991)), surface activity, slurry rheology, grinding media size
distribution and load, bubble size distribution and air load are
extremely difficult to measure on-line and even to infer from
other measurements.
The design of instrumentation strategies (Mazzour (2002))
usually involves the selection of the variables to be measured
(e.g. flowrates, chemical compositions, temperatures…), the
types of sensor to be used (e.g. magnetic flowmeter, X-ray
fluorescence analyser, gamma gauge densimeter…), the
number of sensors, the placement of the sensors on the
various material flow streams, and the accuracy of the
measured variables. The accuracy of a measured variable is a
complex parameter which depends upon many factors. One
obvious factor is the nominal accuracy of the sensor itself,
but many other factors are at stakes, which are usually even
more critical than the sensor accuracy : 1) the representativity
of the measured property of the process state (sampling and
integration errors of particulate material (Gy (1979)), and the
quality of the locally measured variable in an heterogeneous
environment…, 2) the conditioning of the material to be
analyzed (e.g. grinding and dissolution for chemical
analysis), and 3) the maintenance and calibration of the
various parts of the equipment chain involved in a
measurement process.
It is to be recalled that the variances of all the steps in a
measurement process are additive and that they are many.
Thus, the accuracy of a measurement can be viewed as a
continuum, where the maximum threshold is the nominal
accuracy of the terminal sensor as claimed by the vendor. The
minimum accuracy of a measurement is obviously when
there is a complete collapse in any part of the measurement
chain, but in practice, a measurement becomes of low value
when its standard deviation is of the same magnitude as the
value of the variable. The accuracy of a measurement has a
cost which increases with the level of accuracy, the
investment redemption being usually a small part of it, since
the maintenance cost is usually much higher, and much more
related to the measurement accuracy than to the cost for
nominal accuracy of the brand new terminal sensor.
The raw measurement delivered can be directly used in the
various tools of the generalized control loop, however
normally the measurements are processed through model-
based observers that filtered part of the measurement noise
and estimate important state variables. The following
instrumentation criteria are based on the assumption that a
model is used to process the raw data. The model can be mass
balance constraints (see section on data reconciliation) or soft
sensor equations or classical Kalman filters.
The criteria for designing instrumentation architectures are:
1) the process state observability, more particularly, the
observer ability to calculate the key metallurgical variables
and the economic performance index, 2) the observer
performance, evaluated by the variance of the estimated
states or preferably by the economic impact of the variance of
the deviations to the set-points, 3) the operating cost of the
measurement system (equipment, computers, material and
software maintenance, human resources…), a factor which is
directly related to the measurement accuracy, 4) the
robustness of the observation system, assessed through the
sensitivity of the estimate variances to the measurement
variance, the reliability of the state observability (evaluated
for instance through an observer mean time to failure), the
detectability of the process abnormal behaviors or of the
measurement faults.
Two other aspect of instrumentation which have also their
importance are the actuators, the communication hardware
and software between the measurement devices and the data
processing units, and finally the network of real-time
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computers and work stations of the operators and engineers. maximum values for input, output and internal process
These aspects are not discussed here. variables. They are necessary to match the equipment limits,
to warrant safe operation and to respect environmental rules
or penalties in the concentrate sell contract.
3. OVERALL CONTROL ARCHITECTURE
3.1 Control objectives 3.2 General control scheme

The first step in any control design study is obviously to A generalized control loop is schematized in Figure 5
carefully define the objectives and constraints. The objective showing the various blocks it is composed of. The observers
can be simply to maintain a stable operation at fixed or generate zc and zo variables which are fed to the optimizer and
infrequently changed set-points. For grinding circuits the controller. Figure 6 shows more details of the observation
objective is usually to maintain a given product size part of the loop.
distribution, or more exactly a percentage of particles smaller
than a given size corresponding to an acceptable compromise
between liberation and grinding costs. For flotation circuits
the objective is usually expressed as an operating set-point in
the concentrate grade-recovery plane. Ideally the overall
grinding/separation plant should be controlled with grade and
recovery objectives, without necessarily trying to maintain a
constant product fineness. The product fineness should rather
be changed as a function of the fresh ore property
(feedforward control) and as a function of the plant outputs in
a cascade-type feedback control. However this kind of plant- Fig. 5. Generalized control loop.
wide objective is most of the time not considered, because of
the lack of characterization of the fresh ore mineralogy and The sensors and laboratory analyses are included in a
the difficulty to model the impact of size distribution on the measurement block fed with the process variables (u,d,y,x)
separation process performance. and producing a vector of raw measurements which are not
necessarily direct measured values of the process variables
Alternatively the objective can be to optimize an objective but which contain information regarding those variables. The
function. It can be either throughput or recovery function of the next block is to diagnose problems that may
maximization at constant grade, or net revenue maximization. occur to the process or the measuring devices. It could be an
In the latter case the net smelter return is the selected abnormal behaviour of the process or a sensor failure or a
objective function. It contains the value of the metal in the measurement gross accidental errors, or even more subtle
concentrate with penalties for secondary metals minus fixed problems such as measurement biases. Detection and
and variable costs (manpower, reagents, energy, isolation of problems in the raw measurement is usually made
maintenance…). in interaction with the data processing block, where the
residuals of the observer models are used as signatures of
Constraints must be formulated and considered in the control
strategy. Usually they are formulated as minimum or

Fig. 6. Details of the observer part of the generalized control loop.

IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.

potential problems. The detected faults must be corrected or
compensated before the observers outputs are sent to the
controller and optimizer.
The process observers (data processing block) are used to
extract from the raw measurements the information relevant
to the process variables that subsequently will be transferred
to the control and optimization blocks. They can be
conventional filters to remove high frequency in the sensor
signals, or data reconciliation algorithms based on mass
conservation constraints, or soft sensors that infer
unmeasured process variables from other measurements they
are correlated to. Image processors are also methods for
extracting metallurgical information relevant to the process
states from complex information delivered by video cameras.
The process observers are designed to match the different
requirements for control and optimization. For control
purposes the observers must have fast dynamics, and
therefore requires dynamic observation models, while
observers for optimization are seeking rather to characterize
the underlying steady-state of a process, and thus exhibit
slower dynamics.
Using a steady-state model of the plant, the optimizer selects,
for the recently averaged operating conditions of the process
delivered by the observers, the set-points that would
maximize a metallurgical or economic objective function.
Finally the controller selects the values of the manipulated
variables transferred to the actuators. The controller itself
may have a complex structure, particularly when the system
is multivariable and contain feedforward and feedback loops
and is working in a stochastic environment requiring
predictive techniques. This will be discussed in Section 5.
Finally, since the various blocks of the generalized control
loop are based on dedicated process models, real-time
parameter adaptation mechanisms can be added to the loop.
4. MEASUREMENT PROCESSING BLOCK
4.1 Data reconciliation
As any other observer, a data reconciliation procedure makes
a simultaneous use of measured values and process models.
Models are required to cope with common data processing
problems in mineral processing: the measurement
uncertainties, which are quite large in a metallurgical
operation, the lack of measurement availability for critical
variables, the limited knowledge of the process behaviour,
and the information redundancy (available measurements and
prior process knowledge). The uncertainties about process
models is so large in metallurgical industries, that it is
common practice to use only constraints, i.e. sub-models, in
the sense that they are not causal models as assumed in
traditional model-based observation. The selected constraints
are essentially laws of mass conservation, since the level of
confidence in these sub-models is high, and thus prevents
distorting the information content of the data sets by
complete but uncertain models. In the metallurgical and
chemical industries, these observations methods are named
reconciliation methods in the sense that they reconcile the
measurement data with the laws of mass conservation (Crowe
1996, Narasimhan 1999 and Hodouin 2009).
Figure 7 summarizes the concept. The procedure core is a
least-squares based algorithm that serves as an estimator and
a filter. It is an observer in the general sense that it allows the
observation of the states of a process, an estimator in the
sense that it estimates numerical values of state variables
which may not be measured or measurable, and finally a filter
in the sense that if a state variable is measured the observer is
able to correct the experimental value of the process state
variable.
Fig. 7 Scheme of a reconciliation procedure of data with
mass and energy conservation constraints
The input information consists of experimental data, of their
accuracy (measurement error variance), and of the mass
conservation constraints. The mass conservation equations
are written for all the species involved in a MP plant network:
ore, water, metals, particle size classes, metals in particle size
classes, reagents… They are linear or multi-linear equations
where the parameters are perfectly known since they depend
only of the flow network of the plant and do not consider
transfer parameters such as reaction rates. In steady state data
reconciliation the constraints are forced to be perfectly
obeyed (zero variance of the residuals), while for small
deviation to steady-state (stationary operating conditions) the
variance of residuals can be relaxed and set appropriately to
represent the variations around the steady-state regime.
The reconciliation algorithm outputs are the corrected
measured process variables as well as the estimated
unmeasured states. Furthermore reconciliation programs are
usually able to deliver an estimate of the results accuracy.
The reconciled state are more reliable than the raw
measurements, therefore they improve the performances of
the subsequent controller and optimizer.
Example1: A copper flotation plant, fed with a cu-pb
concentrate, produces a copper concentrate and a tail which is
subsequently fed to a bulk flotation plant delivering a lead
concentrate and a zinc-lead concentrate (Hodouin et al.
1984). The traditional 2-product formula can be used to
calculate the recoveries from the raw data. Instead, data could
be reconciled before recovery estimation. Table 1 compares
the values given by the two methods. The improvement of the
recovery standard deviations using reconciled data is quite
significant.
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 Table 1: comparison of recovery calculation with raw and
reconciled data.
Method 2-product formula Reconciled data
Recovery of R (%) R (%) R (%) R (%)
Cu in Cu plant 79.8 7.2 78.0 4.0
Pb in bulk plant 79.0 38 95.3 3.0
Zn in bulk plant 77.8 10 56.0 7.0
4.2 Fault detection and isolation
Mass balance constraints can also be used as a very efficient
mean for detecting and isolating faults in process behaviour
or experimental data. The mass balance equations of a MP
plant network can be projected in a space which contains
only measured variables (parity space). These projected
equations are called redundancy equations since they do not
contain any unmeasured state. When replacing the redundant
process variables by their measured values, the set of
redundant equations is not verified because of the
measurement uncertainties and process disturbances. The
residuals obtained for each equation can be interpreted as
signatures of potential faults. The values of the residuals must
be compatible with the assumed measurement error and
process uncertainties variances. If they are not, and this can
be decided by statistical tests, one may conclude that faults
are present in the data set.
In a subsequent step, diagnosis tests must be performed to
point at the fault, or the faults, which is responsible for the
positive tests on the mass balance residuals. This is
performed sequentially by successively assuming the fault
location and applying a statistical test to decide if the
hypothesis should be retained (Basseville 1997).
Examples : Applications of FDI to flotation circuits and iron
oxide sintering furnaces are illustrated using simulators in the
steady state case and the dynamic case (Berton and Hodouin
2002 and 2007). Material and energy balance methods are
used to detect sensor biases, and operating problems.
4.3 Soft sensors
A soft sensor is an equation which allows the prediction or
estimation of a given unmeasured variable as a function of
other variables. It can be used either for inferring unmeasured
or not measurable variables, or for estimating process
variables that are infrequently measured, or for replacing a
hard-sensor that exhibits a failure or is made unavailable for
maintenance tasks.
While data reconciliation techniques are based on the
phenomenological constraints of mass conservation laws, soft
sensors are based on empirical models. This is a first
important difference which implies parameter adaptation in a
soft sensor, while parameters are normally perfectly known in
a mass balance reconciliation procedure, unless the mass
conservation network is incorrect. Another important
IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.
difference is that reconciliation is based on a constraint that
has to be obeyed by a set of process variables, without giving
any particular cause or effect status to any process variable,
while a soft sensor predicts a given variable as a function of
other variables that are correlated to the predicted one. This
does not necessarily means that they are causes to the
predicted variables, but usually it should be possible to find
some physical reasons why the correlated variables are in the
prediction model. Another important difference is that a soft
sensor does not filter the measurements used for prediction.
Another difference is that a soft sensor has dynamic
properties in that sense that it may use delayed variables into
the prediction equation. Usually, reconciliation methods do
not have this capability when basic steady-state or stationary
mass constraints are used.
The models used for soft sensors are usual linear models
(with respect to parameters) such as recursive polynomial (or
discrete transfer functions), i.e. ARMAX or non-linear
ARMAX models. Model identification can be made off-line
or on-line using usual methods such as LS (least-squares),
ML (maximum likelihood), PLS (projection to latent
structures) regression methods (Hodouin et al 1993). Fuzzy
or ANN (artificial neural nets) models can be used, as well as
phenomenological models and EKF (extended Kalman filter).
As shown in Figure 6, soft sensors must be activated after
FDI and reconciliation methods, since it is important to make
prior detection of outliers and biases, measurement error
filtering, and estimation of unmeasured variables from the
mass conservation constraints, before applying the prediction
equation. Also, soft sensors must be robustified by allowing
model parameter adaptation when operating conditions and
disturbance means are significantly changing. On-line
identification of empirical models has traditional pitfalls:
convergence problems, insufficient excitation, interaction
with controllers. An alternative option is to use a bank of
models depending on the domain of operation.
Example 1: Estimation of hydrocyclone overflow particle size
in closed grinding circuits. Casali et al. (1998), Sbarbaro et
al. (2008), Du et al. (1997) and Sun et al. (2008) used
respectively non-linear ARX stepwise regression, Error
Projection, and recursive LS, ANN and SVM (Support
Vector Machine) for estimating overflow particle size
distribution.
Example 2: Estimation of ore grindability in a closed
grinding circuit. Dubé and Hodouin (1987) used a
phenomenological model and an extended Kalman filter to
detect a multiplying factor of the rate of breakage function,
considered as an estimator of the ore grindability.
Example 3: Detection of hydrocyclone plugged apex in
closed grinding circuits. A soft sensor can be used as a
redundant sensor for fault detection. For instance Bazin et al.
(2009) showed that the pressure drop at a cyclone feed can be
correlated to the pump speed (an indirect measurement of the
cyclone feed rate) and the feed slurry density. A comparison
between the measurement of pressure drop with the hard and
soft can be used as a means to detect a plugged apex in a nest
of hydrocyclones.
Example 4: An adaptive observer has been recently proposed
for on-line estimation of frother concentration (Maldonado et
al. 2009). It consists in identifying a set of linear dynamic
models representing the effect of gas rate on the collection-
zone gas hold-up at different known frother concentrations
(calibration step). An adaptive law is then obtained using
Bayes’ rule to evaluate the conditional probability of each
model representing the observed system behavior. In this
way, a frother concentration estimate is calculated as a
weighted sum of model probabilities and their associated
(known) frother concentrations. This method has been
successfully tested in a two-phased system working with
Dowfroth and MIBC frothers.
4.4 Image processing
Operators of industrial equipments make use of their senses
for intuitively estimating process states. The sound emitted
by a grinding mill, the vibrations of an hydrocyclone, the
colour and particle size of rocks on a conveyor belt, the
colour and texture of a flotation froth, the shape and colour of
a flame… are such examples. Analysis of the frequency
content of noises or vibrations are known techniques to
mimic operator know how and infer process state. The use of
image delivered by video cameras is a more recent practice,
but has a very strong potential. Machine vision is
successfully used in the manufacturing industry for
inspecting deterministic objects, but a flotation froth image or
an image of a batch of ore particles are rather stochastic
objects whose properties are more difficult to extract. Images
containing more than one spectral channel per pixel are
necessary to process such properties, but require more
complex information extraction methods.
Processing of the raw information produced by an RGB
camera, i.e. a multivariate digital image containing a 3-way
array data, starts with some cleaning of the image. Then
features of these images are extracted. They consist of
spectral (colours) or textural signatures. The spectral
signature is obtained through projection techniques such as
principal component analysis. The pixel scores in the low
dimensional space are then associated to properties (colours)
in the original images and the information is reorganized to
defined features relevant to the subsequent application. The
textural features can be separately obtained by techniques
such that Wavelet Texture Analysis, or jointly with spectral
analysis.
Once a set of features is defined to characterize an image, it is
possible to find the correlation existing between the image
features and the process properties to be estimated.
Classification or regression techniques (LS or PLS for
instance) are used to encapsulate the relationship between the
image and the process variables, therefore allowing the image
analyser to work as a soft sensor.
Example 1: Duchesne et al. (2003) documented an image
analysis method for the prediction of a flotation froth grade.
The model between the colour features and the froth
concentration was calibrated by collecting images obtained
with different operating conditions and using PLS. The
technique is validated by comparing four metal grades (Zn,
Fe, Ag, Pb) inferred by image analysis and measured in the
laboratory. The results are quite convincing. The textural
features are also exploited as an indicator of the froth ‘health’
(Bartolacci et al. 2006) and can be used for control (see also
Liu and MacGregor (2008)).
Example 2: The second example consists of estimating the
proportions of three different rock types within a run-of-mine
mixture (Tessier et al. 2007).
5. CONTROLLERS
5.1 Decentralized PID’s
Bouchard and Émond (2009) wrote: ‘PIDs represent 97 per
cent of all controllers encountered on the market. However
only 25 per cent of them contribute to reducing variability’.
The main reason for that is poor tuning. Decentralized PIDs
is the most usual approach to feedback control that is applied
in multivariate MP plants. Variables are coupled in SISO
loops: one control variable used for one controlled variable
(see Figure 8, Maldonado et al. 2008 and Bouchard et al.
2009). As it is well known this empirical approach has many
drawbacks, but if the variable pairings are well designed, it is
frequently quite sufficient to obtain satisfying metallurgical
performances. Usually conservative tunings and filters are
used to avoid problems associated with measurement noise,
process dynamics changes and loop interactions, and, most of
the time, the derivative action is not implemented
Fig. 8. Decentralized PID control schemes.
Example: For grinding circuit control (see for instance
Desbiens et al. 1997), the following control loops are
frequently implemented in conventional rod mill followed by
ball milling in closed circuit:
• Control of hydrocyclone overflow particle fineness with
water addition into the sump.
• Control of sump level using pump speed
• Control of circulating load with ore feed rate
• Water to rod mill added proportionally to the fresh ore
feed rate
IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.
The control of sump level should not be too tightly tuned
because the feed rate change to the hydrocyclone would
cause disturbances to the overflow particle size distribution
(Sbarbaro 2009). Loop interaction can be partly eliminated by
decoupling, a design procedure which involves some process
modelling.
5.2 Model-based feedback controllers
Model-based control for multivariable processes normally
produces better performances than decentralized PIDs. They
however required modelling of the process. The identification
procedures can be found in many textbooks, publications and
software packages (see Ljung 1999 for instance). It must be
underlined that this is the more difficult step in controller
design. This is particularly true for MP processes since
experimentation in plants is difficult because of the inherent
uncontrollable disturbances, the high tonnage operation, and
the problem of measurement noise. The usual model form is
a transfer matrix, but it must be reminded that this type of
linear model is valid only around a nominal operating regime.
The internal model structure approach is certainly the
simplest way to understand and design model-based
controllers, at least for stable processes Figure 9 gives the
corresponding architecture. The difference between the
model and process outputs, which contains the disturbance
effects as well as the modelling errors is in fact an open-loop
observer of the output disturbances that are used to bias the
set-points and produce a reference trajectory for an open-loop
controller. The underlying assumption is that the estimated
output disturbance at the control instant will still be the same
in the future when the process will reacts to the present
control action, i.e. after the pure delays of the process.
In a basic design the open-loop controller is simply obtained
by algebraic inversion of the inversible part of the process
model. To specify the closed loop dynamics, filters can be
implemented for the set-points and the disturbances ,
therefore allowing independent tracking and regulatory
dynamics. It is important to notice that the controller is
designed for the model output, with a desired trajectory
which is a biased value of the metallurgical set-point.
Alternatively the controller can be designed to obtain an
optimal trade-off between 1- the deviation of the model
output to the reference trajectory, and 2- the control
amplitude. Usually squared deviations and squared control
variations with suitable weighting factors are used in the
controller optimization criterion. This is the classical one-step
optimal controller that allows a proper tuning of the
compromise between the controller performance and the
control cost. Although algebraic controllers require square
process models (same numbers of inputs and outputs),
optimal controllers may be rectangular.
When the assumption of a constant output disturbance in the
future (present time plus process delays) is not accurate
enough to give good performance to the controlled process,
IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.
one can model the stochastic behaviour of the output
disturbance delta using transfer matrix driven by white
noises, and then use this model to predict the future value of
delta. This optimal one step ahead predictive stochastic
control scheme will improve the control scheme
performance, inasmuch the disturbance model is sufficiently
persistent.
Finally possible small additional gains and tuning flexibility
can be obtained by extending the prediction horizon of the
stochastic predictor and at the same time the calculation
horizon for the open-loop controller (horizons for the
controlled model output and the manipulated variable), thus
leading to stochastic optimal long range predictive controllers
(Qin 2003).. It must be emphasized that the proposed unified
structure of Fig. 6 contains all the usual model-based
predictive controllers (Desbiens et al. 2000). The number of
tuning factors is large (set-point and disturbance filters,
control and prediction horizon, weighting factors) and
redundant, thus sometimes leading only to very small
improvements in comparison to the above simpler
controllers. Inequality constraints can be added in an ad hoc
fashion to this control structure, leading for instance to
QDMC.
5.3 Model-based feedback plus feedforward controllers
Any of the above structure can be augmented with
feedforward control for compensating the effects of measured
(or inferred) input disturbances (see Figure 9), if the model of
their effects on the process output is known. The observer
part of the control architecture must be changed, in order that
the modelled effects of input disturbances are substracted
from the process output to generate a new  variable, which
only contains unmodelled disturbances and modelling errors.
The modelled effects of the disturbances are also removed
from the metallurgical set-points, thus defining the desired
trajectory for the process model output. It must be understood
that the controller remains unchanged; only the reference
trajectory of the model output is modified.
When the input disturbances are modelled with a transfer
function or matrix, then a stochastic predictor of d can be
added, therefore allowing also prediction of the disturbance
effect at the output. Depending on the controller used the
prediction would be short or long range.
5.4 Internal state model-based controllers
The previous controllers directly control the output variable
y, but it might be interesting also to control internal
metallurgical states (among the set x) which are process
variables that act upon the final controlled variables y. The
structure would then be a kind of cascade of controllers,
where the outer loop controllers select set-points for the inner
loops that control the internal state variables. To illustrate this
concept, let us consider the following proposal for a flotation
column.
 Fig. 9 Internal model presentation of advanced multivariable controllers with feedback and feedforward features (including
algebraic control, optimal control, minimum variance control, stochastic predictive control…).

Example: For flotation column control (Bouchard et al.
2009), Figure 10 shows that the final controlled variables are
concentrate quantity and quality as usual. These outputs are
controlled by the following internal state variables : gaz hold-
up, bubble surface area flux (Sb), net water flowrate through
the froth/slurry interface (bias), and froth depth. If a process
model is available for linking concentrate grade and flowrate
(or recovery) these internal variables could be given set-point
values that would lead to the targets for the two final
controlled variables. In addition Sb is controlled by the gaz
rate and also by an other internal state, the bubble size
distribution, which also depends on the frother concentration.
A multi-cascade controller could therefore be used to control
the two output variables, instead of using a single controller
to select directly the five manipulated variables. This type of
cascade structure would theoretically give better
performances than a direct control. However, it requires good
models linking the internal variables to the controlled and
control variables, and the possibility to measure the internal
variables, or infer them using soft sensors. The latter point is
feasible (del Villar et al. 2009), since methods exists for
measuring gaz hold-up, bias, froth depth, even frother
concentration, Sb, and BSD (bubble size distribution).
Unfortunately these techniques are quite complex and the
proposed control architecture is more a dream than an
implementable strategy.

Fig. 10. Example of possible internal states control for flotation columns (BSD = bubble size distribution; PSSCD = Particle
size and surface composition distribution; PHD = Particle hydophobicity distribution).

IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.


5.5 Which controller?
It is difficult to decide of the value of using more complex
controllers than decentralized PID. Linear or non-linear
predictive controllers minimize the variance around the set-
points while minimizing the control effort, however the
economic value associated to these improvements is difficult
to estimate. Procedures are proposed to perform such
estimations by defining economic performance indicator for
each controlled variable (Craig et al. 2000). Then the
convolution of these performance indices with the probability
density functions of the deviations to the set-points, observed
experimentally or by simulation, with different controllers
allows the evaluation of the economical gains that can be
obtained with advanced controllers. It is assumed that the
comparisons are performed during conditions where the
disturbances are of the same nature (same spectra), a
condition that may be difficult to obtain in a MP plant.
A systematic assessment method has been applied to a closed
SAG grinding circuit (Wei and Craig (2009)) for comparing
decentralized PID to non-linear predictive control. The
impact of the particle size distribution on the performance of
the subsequent flotation circuit was the main indicator used
for comparison. Conclusions were that, in this specific case,
the profit increase due to tighter control is small compared to
the increase profit due to the move of the set-point value to a
better operating point. This opens the door to thinking that
optimal supervision of operating set-points could be an
approach to explore.
6. OPTIMIZERS
As said above, with respect to the economic performance of a
MP plant, the controller is most probably not as important as
the right selection of the set-points. This is why it would be
useful to supervise a regulatory control system with an
optimizer that may change the operating set-points as a
function of the properties and throughput of the processed
ore, and of external factors such as the metal market prices or
the environmental constraints. The MP plant performance is
evaluated by an indicator that could be expressed either by
technical factors, such as the tonnage of valuable material
produced, or by the quality of the material produced (e.g.
concentrate grade or metal purity). More globally, since a
trade-off between the productivity, the material quality and
the production costs is required, the performance is
frequently expressed as an economical index which embeds
all these aspects.
Figure 11 shows such a performance index J as function of
the operating set-points values, for assumed steady-states
values of the disturbance inputs. This quadratic curve is
therefore characteristic of a process steady-state. When the
disturbance steady-states change a different curve is obtained.
For stationary disturbances around a given mean value the
index varies on the same curve around the optimal value, then
economic losses are experienced by the plant. The larger the
variance around the optimal set-point, the larger is the
economic loss. The importance of the loss is related to the
IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.
curvature of the performance curve around its optimum value
and to the performance of the controller to minimize the
variance of the deviations to the set-points. The other source
of economic losses is related to the persistent variations of
the disturbance means, if the set-points are not modified
accordingly. In the example of the previous section, it was
observed that this effect was more significant than the effect
of the controller dependent variance.
In the proposed architecture of the overall control loop of
Figure 5, steady-state optimization is separated from the
controller, which may be optimal but with respect to set-point
tracking and disturbance compensation rather than with
respect to the economic performance. It would theoretically
be possible to conceive an architecture that dynamically
optimize the economic performance, but this would still
require a much more complex design than the proposed
simplified architecture.
Fig. 11. Optimal set-points and performance losses.
Optimizer design first requires that the objective function to
be optimized must be clearly defined. It may contain
variables such as the production rate, the valuable metal
recoveries, the grade of the final product, the secondary metal
and contaminants contents, the consumed energy and
reagents, and the rejected elements in the tailings, which for
long-term ethical considerations should be evaluated. The
optimal operating conditions can be considered for the global
plant (Sosa-Blanco et al. 2000) or for individual production
units. The optimizer receives from the data processing block
an estimation of the averaged disturbances persistently
prevailing in a given time window, and then search for the
optimal set-points corresponding to this steady-state
disturbance level. This is accomplished by an empirical
steady-state model of the process or preferably by a
phenomenological simulator.
Example 1: Constrained real time optimization of a grinding
circuit using steady-state linear programming supervisory
control is documented in Lestage et al. (2000).
Example 2: A gold ore cyanidation process. A series of well
mixed leaching tanks is considered and the plant performance
index contains extracted gold value, cyanide cost, costs
related to the ore tonnage, costs related to the reject
decontamination, and penalties associated to gold losses in
the tailings – that would have to be reprocessed by future
generations. The disturbances are the ore feed rate and gold
content, and the particle size distribution that directly disturbs
the kinetics of gold dissolution and cyanide consumption by
cyanicides. The optimizer calculates every half-hour the new
cyanide content set-points in the various tanks, using an
estimation of the more recent averaged values of the
disturbances (as produced by the observer).
7. CONCLUSION
This presentation described the basic ingredients that are
necessary in generalized control loops. The messages that
were delivered are 1) the controller is efficient when the
observers have been carefully designed, taking into account
that measurement are inaccurate and major variables not
measurable, therefore requiring models to compensate for
these two problems; 2) a supervisory optimizer is required for
selecting set-points that maximize metallurgical or economic
performances; 3) different models must be identified for the
specific needs of the controller, the observer and the
optimizer. A good design, tuning and maintenance of the loop
elements is certainly rewarding, because of the high tonnage
treated in a MP plant. Various commercial sensors and tools
are now available for the implementation of advanced control
techniques: vision sensors, experts systems, adaptive
controllers, predictive controllers, optimization systems,
dynamic simulators, and there is no doubt that more tools
will emerge in the future. However control is more than tools.
Success in automation applications relies on knowledge of
the phenomena involved in MPs, on people properly trained
to these techniques – certainly the two weakest links of the
control chain - and finally on enthusiastic teams.
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IFACMMM 2009. Viña del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.