APPLICATION OF A LEARNING AGENT TO ACHIEVE AUTONOMOUS OPERATION OF A TWIN ROLL CASTING MACHINE

A twin roll casting system comprises a pair of counter-rotating casting rolls having a nip between the casting rolls and capable of delivering cast strip downwardly from the nip; a casting roll controller configured to adjust at least one process control setpoint between the casting rolls in response to control signals; a cast strip sensor capable of measuring at least one parameter of the cast strip; and a controller coupled to the cast strip sensor to receive cast strip measurement signals from the cast strip sensor and coupled to the casting roll controller to provide control signals to the casting roll controller. The controller comprises a reinforcement learning (RL) Agent, the RL Agent generating control signals for the casting roll controller in response to a reward function having a first term rewarding emulating human operation of the process control setpoint and a second term rewarding a short set-up time.