This work presents a new conception of in-situ combustion control schemes for pulverized coal-fired boilers to improve the installed conventional control equipment of power plant units. In this paper, radiant energy signal (RES), based on a flame image processing technique, is put forward and an optimal on-line combustion supervisory strategy is developed for introducing RES into the combustion control circuit. The results show that better combustion efficiency can be obtained in association with the control property. Also a decrease in fuel consumption with a corresponding decrease in the consumption of energy, as well as a reduction of emissions, has been studied and tested for the optimization. In this paper, the optimal scheme is proved to be practical and economical, and it can be used to optimize the combustion control design and operation of pulverized coal-burning boilers, when considering both the stability of steam pressure as a traditional calorific value signal and the rapidity of response by using RES. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.