• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.600-607
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• 2001

A CCD camera with a laser stripe was applied to realize the automatic weld seam tracking in GMAW. It takes relatively long time to process image on-line control using the basic Hough transformation, but it has a tendency of robustness over the noises such as spatter and arc light. For this reason. it was complemented with adaptive Hough transformation to have an on-line processing ability for scanning specific weld points. The adaptive Hough transformation was used to extract laser stripes and to obtain specific weld points. The 3-dimensional information obtained from the vision system made it possible to generate the weld torch path and to obtain the information such as width and depth of weld line. We controled the wire feeding rate using informations of weld line.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.79-88
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• 1996

For improvement in productivity and weld quality, weld seam tracking and welding parameter control are very essential in the welding of a structure which can not be cxactly fit-up due to mismatch, discontinous gap, deflection, etc.. In this study, an automatic weld seam tracking system is developed for I-butt joint structure, and the system consists of XYZ working table, vision sensor and user interface program. In the developed vision sensor system, an image projection algorithm for weld-line detection and an adaptive current control algorithm for gap variation were implemented. The user interface program developed in this study by basing on the objct oriented concept could provide very convenient way to utilize the tracking system with the pull-down menu driven structure. The developed system showed a good seam tracking and weld quality control capability corresponding to deflected weld lines and gap variations.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.103-110
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• 2008

A reliable extraction of welded area is the precedent task before the detection of weld defects in industrial radiography. This paper describes an attempt to detect and extract the welded features of steel tubes from the computed radiography(CR) images. The statistical properties are first analyzed on over 160 sample radiographic images which represent either weld or non-weld area to identify the differences between them. The analysis is then proceeded by pattern classification to determine the clustering parameters. These parameters are the width, the functional match, and continuity. The observed weld image is processed line by line to calculate these parameters for each flexible moving window in line image pixel set. The local statistic line-clustering method is used as the classifier to recognize each window data as weld or non-weld cluster. The sequential procedure is to track the edge lines between two distinct regions by iterative calculation of threshold, and it results in extracting the weld feature. Our methodology is concluded to be effective after experiment with CR weld images.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.53-61
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• 2000

On the laser weld production line, a slight alteration of the welding condition produces many defects. The defects are monitored in real time, in order to prevent continuous occurrence of defects, reduce the loss of material, and guarantee good quality. The measurement system is produced by using three photo-diodes for detection of the plasma and spatter signal in CO$_2$ laser welding. For high speed CO$_2$ laser welding, laser tailored welded blanks for example, on-line weld quality monitoring system was developed by using fuzzy multi-feature pattern recognition. Weld qualities were classified optimal heat input, a little low heat input, low heat input, and focus misalignment, and final weld quality were classified good and bad.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1997.04a
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• pp.729-733
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• 1997

Due to the variety of disturbance, it is not ease to accomplish the in-process detection of weld line with non-contact sensor. To get around this difficulties problem develop an automatic seam tracking weld system, the reliable signal processing algorithm has been recommanded. In this research, laser displacement sensor is applied as a seam finder in the automatic tracking system. The sensor is controlled by a dc servo motor which is mounted at X-Y moving table. X-Y moving table manipulated by an ac servo motor controls the position and velocity of the welding torch. First, X-Y table moves to Y-axis to search the welding joint feature before starting the welding, and welding joint is from the scanning data and weighting factor for each other. Second, weld line is determined using proposed signal processing algorithm during welding process. Form the experimental results, we could see the possibility that laser displacement sensor with procesed algorithm can be used as a seam finder in welding process under the severe noise (spatter,arc light etc.) condition

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.26-35
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• 1999

On the laser weld production line, a slight alteration of the welding condition changes the bead size and the strength of the weldment. The measurement system is produced by using three photo-diodes for detection of the plasma and spatter signal in $CO_2$ laser welding. The relationship between the sensor signals of plasma or spatter and the bead shape, and the mechanism of the plasma and spatter were analyzed for the bead size estimation. The penetration depth and the bead width were estimated using the multiple regression analysis.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.713-716
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• 2000

In this study, we present a mobile robot for ultrasonic scanning of weldment. magnetic Caterpillar mechanism is selected in order to travel on the inclined surface and vertical wall. A motion control board and motor driver are developed to control four DC-servo motors. A virtual device driver is also developed for the purpose of communicating between the control board and a host PC with Dual 'port ram. To provide the mobile robot with stable and accurate movement, PID control algorithm is applied to the mobile robot control. And a vision system for detecting the weld-line are developed with laser slit beam as a light source. In the experiments, movement of the mobile robot is tested inclined on a surface and a vertical wall.

• International Journal of Korean Welding Society
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.51-56
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• 2002

The weld seam tracking system for arc welding process uses various kinds of sensors such as arc sensor, vision sensor, laser displacement sensor and so on. Among the variety of sensors available, electro-magnetic sensor is one of the most useful methods especially in sheet metal butt-joint arc welding, primarily because it is hardly affected by the intense arc light and fume generated during the welding process, and also by the surface condition of weldments. In this study, a dual-electromagnetic sensor, which utilizes the induced current variation in the sensing coil due to the eddy current variation of the metal near the sensor, was developed for arc welding of sheet metal I-butt joints. The dual-electromagnetic sensor thus detects the offset displacement of weld line from the center of sensor head even though there's no clearance in the joint. A set of design variables of the sensor was determined far the maximum sensing capability through the repeated experiments. Seam tracking is performed by correcting the position of sensor to the amount of offset displacement every sampling period. From the experimental results, the developed sensor showed the excellent capability of weld seam detection when the sensor to workpiece distance is near less than 5 ㎜, and it was revealed that the system has excellent seam tracking ability for the I-butt joint of sheet metal.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.122-131
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• 1995

An automatic welding equipment for thick plates requires the capability of the seam tracking of the weld line which often includes misalignment of the workpiece and variation of groove width. In this study, an automatic welding equipment and control algorithms based on the arc sensor were proposed for the GMA welding of thick plates which had misalignment and gap variation. The developed system being constituted with 5 axis can be automatically controlled by computer and also automnatically set the welding conditions such as welding current, and voltage. The proposed algorithms for the seam tracking in multi-pass welding of the thick plates were constituted as follows : the detection of weaving-end point for findng the variation of groove width, the control of welding velocity for acquiring a constant thickness deposition of weld metal, and the calculation of groove width and height of an arbitrary pass in the multi-pass weld. As results of the application of the system, it was revealed that the system had a good capability in seam tracking and made an excellent weld quality in V groove butt joint.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.70-75
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• 2000

The weld seam tracking system for arc welding process uses various kinds of sensors such as arc sensor, vision sensor, laser displacement and so on. Among the variety of sensors available, electro-magnetic sensor is one of the most useful methods especially in sheet metal butt-joint arc welding, primarily because it is hardly affected by the intense arc light and fume generated during the welding process, and also by the surface condition of weldments. In this study, a dual-electromagnetic sensor, which utilizes the induced current variation in the sensing coil due to the eddy current variation of the metal near the sensor, was developed for arc welding of sheet metal butt-joints. The dual-electromagnetic sensor thus detects the offset displacement of weld line from the center of sensor head even though there's no clearance in the joint. A set of design variables of the sensor were determined for the maximum sensing capability through the repeated experiments. Seam tracking is performed by correcting the position of sensor to the amount of offset displacement every sampling period. From the experimental results, the developed sensor showed the excellent capability of weld seam detection when the sensor to workpiece distance is near less than 5 mm, and it was revealed that the system has excellent seam tracking ability for the butt-joint of sheet metal.