“The rail car is moving forward, please be safe.” In the last week of February, accompanied by a loud reminder sound, Baosteel Group’s first industrial robot suitable for blast furnace production officially went into trial operation, taking on the task of filling the cannon mud of the No. 4 blast furnace of Baosteel Co., Ltd.’s Iron and Steel Plant.
Filling with gun mud is an important part of blast furnace production. After the taphole crosses the molten iron, a “big hole” is left in the furnace. The workers in front of the furnace are required to carry the gun mud and fill it into the gun mud machine and then quickly and accurately fill the “hole” to prevent the molten iron and slag from overflowing, so as to quickly enter the next furnace ironmaking operation.
It takes half an hour for the furnace workers to carry 40 to 50 bags of cannon mud for one cannon mud filling operation. The temperature in the furnace area is extremely high. It is not bad in winter, but the high temperature of more than 50 degrees in summer makes the cannon mud filling work more difficult. In addition to the high temperature, the soldiers always pay attention to the risks of gas and operation, and the responsibility and work of the employees are extremely high.
The safety and health of employees are the valuable assets of the enterprise. In order to liberate employees from jobs with high risks, poor environment and high labor intensity and improve the inherent safety level,
At the No. 3 taphole of the No. 4 blast furnace in the ironmaking plant, the intelligent robot for applying taphole mud, wearing a heavy fluorescent suit, is “learning” intensively. “The intelligent robot system for applying taphole mud to blast furnaces consists of a robot system, an intelligent fixture system, an intelligent aiming system, an electric-guided automated mobile platform, and a hardware control system, which are highly integrated on an electric-driven automated mobile platform.” In the No. 4 blast furnace operation room, Zhang demonstrated the remote one-button automatic taphole mud application function, which was impressive. The robot operation console is simple with only eight keys, and functional zoning is achieved. This design significantly reduces the system operation occupancy rate and the workload of employees.
We comprehensively consider the factors of the on-site environment, and through remote clothing protection and real-time operation of mobile platforms, we can improve the life of the system in a statistical environment, while reducing the interference of the robot on the site. The system integrates cognitive theory, 3D logic and artificial intelligence technology, and realizes the robot’s visual recognition and positioning of disordered stacked gun mud in the repetitive and complex furnace environment such as high temperature, strong light, and radiation, reducing the impact of the complex on-site environment on the robot. “The R&D personnel also added regional boundary intrusion warning, gun mud shortage reminder, mud gun machine loading status recognition and other functions to the robot by integrating a variety of intelligent operation assistance algorithms, reducing the labor intensity of employees and improving safety production efficiency.
