The claim to produce flat products in hot strip rolling lines strictly tailored to the demands of next step processes and final customers has been tackled for long only in terms of enhanced local flatness of the strip in the line.

Thus the core aim of the project is the development of a co-ordinated flatness set-up system, based on an "Adaptive Flatness Predictor", which optimises all actuator set points relevant for the evolution of flatness downstream from the exit of the finishing train to the cold coil and takes into account all process and actuator constraints inclusive the special conditions of edge masking.

Basis for the development of the co-ordinated flatness set-up system will be the performance of rolling trials at a pilot line, field investigations at HSMs and structured data analysis to identify the parameters of a hybrid model of flatness evolution downstream the complete line.

These investigations will lead to a decision support system, which generates optimal set-up modifications to gain a flat cold coil satisfying customer requirements.