Abstract
M. Ing.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of computer vision techniques to measure
the electrode slip. The study investigates a potential location for camera placement in the
furnace housing, as well as the use of computer vision algorithms that could be used to solve
the problem. A slip measurement algorithm is then designed, implemented and tested.
The implemented slip measurement algorithm is based on the manual slip measurement technique,
by measuring relative electrode and slip arm displacement between the electrode and the
slip arm. The algorithm uses SURF invariant features to extract the electrode features and slip
arm features in one frame, and match these features to the next frame SURF. Scene calibration
is then used to relate the pixel slip measurement to a metric distance measurement. The experimental
results proved that there is scope for applying computer vision techniques to address the
slip measurement problem, using a single HD camera. However, there is room for improvement
and the recommendations and future work are also discussed.