Detection and tracking of refuse-derived fuel particles based on a light field camera system

Recently, refuse-derived fuel has found an increasingly wide utilization in combustion processes, such as combustion in cement rotary kilns for production of heat. To insure controllable and secure combustion of this alternative fuel an analysis of its flight- and combustion behaviour is essential. In this paper, we present methods to recognize flying particles according to images recorded by a light field camera during combustion of refuse- derived fuel in a pilot-scale plant with a rotary kiln. The camera system provides 3D information of the fuel particles as well as the kiln's inner shape. The analysis refers to approaches of particle detection exploiting 3D-clustering algorithms and particle tracking using multi object tracking algorithms.