Recently, the RH ladle automatic jacking system based on visual large model and mechanism model, independently developed by Capital Engineering & Research Incorporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as CERI), has successfully completed hot commissioning at a steel company in Hebei Province. This marks a solid step forward for the RH refining process towards full automation, high precision and high safety, injecting strong momentum into the intelligent transformation of the iron and steel industry.

As a key link in achieving the goal of "one-click RH steelmaking", the system deeply integrates the self-developed “CERI SmartEye” machine vision platform of CERI with profound metallurgical process mechanisms, building a highly robust control system dominated by physical models and supported by intelligent perception. The system adopts a "model + vision" dual-redundancy architecture and realizes fully automatic closed-loop control through the primary PLC. The dynamic model based on vacuum metallurgy mechanism dominates the jacking decision-making, while the “CERI SmartEye” vision module operates stably in harsh industrial environments with high temperature, strong light and dust, providing reliable status feedback for model input. This forms an efficient mechanism of "model-led decision-making, vision-based verification and closed-loop execution", ensuring that ladle jacking operations remain stable, accurate and safe under complex working conditions.

Core capabilities and achieved indicators of the system are as follows:

Full-process automatic jacking and lowering control: Based on dual-redundancy status identification via the vacuum metallurgy mechanism model and “CERI SmartEye” machine vision, the system realizes fully automatic ladle jacking and lowering, with an automatic application rate as high as 99%.

Process coordination function: It supports on-demand pause during the jacking process to facilitate manual temperature measurement, sampling and other operations, ensuring seamless integration of process flexibility and automation.

Safety pre-lowering mechanism: After the main valve is closed and before vacuum breaking, the ladle pre-lowering action is automatically triggered to verify actuator reliability, effectively avoiding the risk of liquid steel overflow at the moment of vacuum breaking and significantly improving operational safety.

Immersion depth self-calibration: Through the linkage of visual positioning and model feedback, the immersion depth of the snorkel is automatically reset to zero, ensuring compliance with the interlock conditions for vacuum treatment.

Dynamic adjustment protection mechanism: The lifting speed is dynamically adjusted according to the jacking status, and the system stops automatically without overshoot when approaching the target value. The ladle jacking positioning deviation is controlled within ±10mm, avoiding frequent actuation of hydraulic equipment, and effectively extending the service life of the actuator while ensuring control accuracy.

Bumpless fault switching capability: With a real-time early warning function, the system automatically judges its available status and exits model control automatically in case of abnormality or failure. Multiple safety interlock protection measures are configured to realize bumpless switching between model control and local control, with the preset local operation mode as the highest priority to enhance system safety.

Real-time smelting status tracking: It dynamically tracks the real-time steelmaking status from ladle arrival before treatment to ladle departure after treatment, covering full-process tracking display and replacing manual secondary confirmation.

High-precision closed-loop positioning: Adopting an integral control algorithm combined with a feedforward response mechanism, it accurately calculates the target jacking height during the key window period of vacuum pumping, improving system reliability.

Rapid processing capability: With fully automatic control from jacking initiation to ladle lowering in place after vacuum treatment, the single-heat processing time of the RH furnace can be reduced by 2 to 3 minutes compared with manual control, fully adapting to the fast-paced production rhythm.

Multiple safety interlock guarantees: Integrated with dual software and hardware safety interlock logic, it covers abnormal working conditions in all jacking stages, ensuring that the system operation is always controllable and reliable.

The success of this hot commissioning not only verifies the core role and engineering value of the vacuum metallurgy mechanism model in complex metallurgical control scenarios, but also demonstrates the key supporting value of the “CERI SmartEye” industrial AI vision platform in the intelligent upgrading of high-end manufacturing.