RESIDUAL NEURAL NETWORKS IN THE FLOTATION

FROTH INSPECTION
Smart
Connected

Mine
AHMED BENDAOUIA

COMMETTE OF THE THESIS :

MR. ABDELMALEK BOUSSETTA (REMINEX)
PR. EL HASSAN ABDELWAHED (UCA)
PR. ABDESSAMAD KHALIL (ENSMR) MR. ABDERRAHMANE BENHAYOUN (MANAGEM)

PR. SARA QASSIMI (UCA) MME. OUMKELTOUM AMAR (MASCIR)

26/09/2022
 Context
➢ Smart Connected Mine
2 Operators Security

2 Processes Optimisations
Online Analyzer: Real time
prediction of ores grades Energy Efficiency
using machine vision and Predective Maintenance
AI.

Real-time monitoring of
Energy Efficiency. equipment health, just-in-time
Consumption- maintenance request to our
monitoring. CMMS.

Digitization of Mine Safety

using Computer Vision based
on AI.
Development of Digital
Twins to improve and
optimize the performance
operations of mining
production units.

Development of Prediction of ground

sorting technology instabilities and boulder
methods using AI for falls using machine
valuing low-grade vision.
resources.
 Problematic
➢ Flotation Control

3 3 Online determination of elemental composition of minerals

Example of flotation circuits

 Problematic
➢ Flotation supervision

4 Online determination of minerals grade

Fig 2: Flowchart of flotation circuit.

Fig 1: The online analyzer fist prototype
PLAN
1 Contexte & Problematic

2 Residual Neural Network

3 Features extraction Machine vision, Deep Learning

4 Application and results

5 Optimization of the average predictions

6 Summary, perspective and blocking points

 Residual Neural Networks
➢ Birth and added value

Deeper neural networks are more difficult to

train. The authors present a residual learning
framework to ease the training of networks that
are substantially deeper than those used 3

previously. 4

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=deep+residual+learning+for+image+recognition&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
 Methodology
➢ Data variety and collection

3
4

1 Courier 6G enables results of 5 points each 20 min based on X-ray fluorescence analysis
2
On demand monitoring technique based on the atomic absorption (2h)
3 Frame selection based on the uniform sampling 2 frames per second
4
The concentrations were slightly noised with a tolerable value of 0.5% provided by Reminex experts
 Modeling and results CMG flotation Cu Pb
➢ Statistical analysis

Relavage Pb Relavage 1 Relavage 3 Relavage 4

Circuit Pb
stand dev stand stand dev stand dev stand dev
Average Average dev Average Average Average
Zn Fe
Pb%
31,80 17,29 40,94 15,22 21,16 5,39 40,72 7,78 53,45 7,68
Cu%
1,75 1,22 1,59 1,18 2,29 1,32 1,74 1,03 1,06 0,97
Fe%
14,28 6,55 11,08 5,00 16,71 4,03 10,52 4,07 7,92 2,60
Zn%
4,72 2,02 4,58 2,25 5,19 1,47 3,97 1,55 4,59 2,94 Statistical distribution of Pb, Cu, Fe, Zn in Pb circuit
Total
Video 36 10 10 16
58
Total
Obs* 1566 435 433 696
s
2524 CMG Pb, Zn, Cu Circuit Pb Circuit Pb, Relavage 4
Total
Average and standard deviation of Pb, Cu, Fe, Zn from different data sources Video
346 116 65

Total Obs*
(labelled 10440 5850
Total Obs* is the total of observations after frame selection (2fps) and data augmentation of the minerals composition 0,5% Images) 31140
Approach 1

Froth flotation features

extraction Machine
vision based
 Usage framework
➢ Froth flotation features extraction Machine vision based
▪ X1 : Froth descriptors determination using machine vision (Color distribution, texture, bubble size, viscosity, velocity ... etc.)

10

Bubble size Viscosity and velocity

Texture
and Color
distribution
[Liu, et al 2021]

Copper sulphide (Chalcopyrite) CuFeS2 Zinc sulphide (Sphalerite) ZnS Plomb sulphide (Galena) PbS
[Liu, et al 2021] “Color Co-Occurrence Matrix Based Froth Image Texture Extraction for Mineral Flotation.” Minerals Engineering, vol. 46-47, 1 June 2013, pp. 60–67,
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0892687513000988, 10.1016/j.mineng.2013
 Froth flotation features extraction Machine vision based
➢ Bubble size detection
Correlation between bubble size and concentration grade

11

• Bubbles in the froth visual field exhibit clear shapes, where most froth bubbles are
elliptical[1]. In these conditions, the flotation concentrate grade is generally high, and the
contents of valuable ores in the tailings are relatively low.
 Froth flotation features extraction Machine vision based
➢ Velocity detection
Correlation between velocity and concentration grade

12

• The froth flows is generally in high speed, but not uniform, depending on the feeding rate and the flotation state, which impacts the
recovery. We aim to estimate these parameters by detecting the velocity.
• A high velocity represents high recovery and low grade
• Low velocity means low recovery and high grade

Fig 1: Applied algorithms for the velocity detection from the flotation froth
 Modeling and results CMG flotation
➢ Computer vision and Machine Learning based

Color + texture + bubble size perimeters Pb%

Model Random forest Relavage 4 Circuit Pb

Training Accuracy = 0.9529172151486679

Training RMSE = 0.851178331116258

Minerals Actual value Predicted value

Zn% 7,9 8,16

Cu% 0,15 0,72
Fe% 5,5 6,00
Actual value Pb% : 62.6

Predicted value Pb% : 55.39

Approach 2

Neural Networks application

in the differential flotation
(Pb, Cu, Zn) CMG site Morocco
 Modeling and results CMG flotation
➢ Used Neural network models

The results of the online analyzer deep learning based in the

diffrent use cases, archetectures and predicted minerals

Input image

Pb
Fe
Cu
Zn

Fig 1: The used CNN architecture in the mineral grades' prediction

Fig 2: CNN parameters evolution

24 pages
 Modeling and results CMG flotation
➢ Predicted grades of relavage 3, video rl3_pb17-4.mp4

Cu% Pb%

Fe%
Zn%
Modeling and results CMG flotation
➢ Statistiques of the results ResNet Vs CNN

Relavage 3
Moyenne Ectype
Actual value ResNet CNN

Pb
38,74 15,64 45.99 41.52 40.37
Cu
1,72 1,16 2.54 2,01 1.54
Fe
11,41 5,09 10.58 10.98 9.80
Zn
4,13 1,71 3.62 4.61 3.84
 Summary, constraints and perspective
18

▪ WE CAN DETERMINE ELEMENTAL COMPOSITION OF MINERALS BASED ON THE VISUAL INSPECTION OF

THE FLOTATION FROTH.
▪ THE USE OF TECHNOLOGIES LIKE IMAGE PROCESSING AND MACHINE LEARNING ENABLE HAVING REAL
TIME MONITORING TO IMPROVE MINING PRODUCTIVITY.

▪ YOU SHOULD TRY RESNETS!

Computer Science Engineering Laboratory (LISI) DI FSSM UCA Al Khawarizmi Project MASCiR-Reminex 26/09/2022 18
REAL-TIME ANALYZER OF ELEMENTAL COMPOSITION BASED ON MACHINE
VISION AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE FLOTATION UNITS

Smart
Connected

Mine
AHMED BENDAOUIA

COMMETTE OF THE THESIS :

MR. ABDELMALEK BOUSSETTA (MANAGEM)
PR. EL HASSAN ABDELWAHED (UCA)
PR. ABDESSAMAD KHALIL (ENSMR) MR. ABDERRAHMANE BENHAYOUN (MANAGEM)

PR. SARA QASSIMI (UCA) MME. OUMKELTOUM AMAR (MASCIR)

26/09/2022