Operating mode recognition: Application in continuous casting

System often has several operating modes that are controlled by the operator to follow a desired change or not in the case of fault occurrence or change due to the environment of the system. The challenge is to be able to know the current operating mode in order to apply the appropriate controls. The aim of this work is to recognise the active mode at any time, and to estimate the switching time between modes. The proposed method is able to detect mode changes without the knowledge of the model parameters characterising each mode. An application in continuous casting illustrates the ability to detect a variation of a friction coefficient.