Highland Valley Copper Control Systems Upgrade - Technology, Design, Simulation, and Installation

This paper describes a facility wide distributed control system (DCS) upgrade project at a large copper and molybdenum mineral processing operation. The innovative hardware and software technologies employed in the new control system are discussed. The planning process, migration path and simulation techniques used to ensure the success of such a large and complex DCS upgrade are described. A novel mathematical model and simulator of the primary mill is described. A novel advanced control and optimization algorithm for the primary mill is described. Performance testing of the new advanced control and optimization algorithms using the new primary mill model and simulator is described.