• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.932-935
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• 2005

Three dimensional laser welding technology for light car body is studied. A robot, a seam tracking system and 4kW CW Nd:YAG laser are used for three dimensional robot laser welding system. The Laser system is used 4kW Nd:YAG laser(HL4006D) of Trumpf and the Robot system is used IRB6400R of ABB. The Seam tracking system is SMRT-20LS of ServoRobot. The welding joint of steel plate are butt and lap joint. The 3-D welding for Non-linear Tailored blank is performed after the observation experiments of bead on plate. Finally, the welding process for non-linear tailored blank and front side member is developed.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.68-76
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• 1998

A CCD camera with a laser stripe was applied to realized the automatic weld seam tracking. The 3-dimensional information obtained from the vision system made it possible to generate the weld torch path. The adaptive Hough transformation was used to extract laser stripes an to obtain specific weld points. It takes relatively long time to process image on-line control using the basic control using the basic Hough transformation, but it has a tendency of robustness over the noises such as spatter. For this reason, it was complemented with adaptive Hough transformation to have an on-line processing ability for scanning specific weld points. The dead zone, where the sensing of weld line is impossible, was eliminated by rotating the camera with its rotating axis centered at the weld torch. When weld lines were detected, the camera angle was controlled in order to get the minimum image data for sensing of weld lines. Consequently, the image processing time was reduced.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1995.10a
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• pp.1105-1109
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• 1995

A CCD-camera, which is structured with vision system, was used to realize automatic seam-tracking system and 3-D information which is needed to generate torch path, was obtained by using laser-slip beam. To extract laser strip and obtain welding-specific point, Adaptive Hough-transformation was used. Although the basic Hough transformation takes too much time to process image on line, it has a tendency to be robust to the noises as like spatter. For that reson, it was complemented with Adaptive Hough transformation to have an on-line processing ability for scanning a welding-specific point. the dead zone,where the sensing of weld line is impossible, is eliminated by rotating the camera with its rotating axis centered at welding torch. The camera angle is controlled so as to get the minimum image data for the sensing of weld line, hence the image processing time is reduced. The fuzzy controller is adapted to control the camera angle.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.83-97
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• 1992

A new approach, to seam tracking for robotic are welding is proposed. In this approach, the weld model is a snapshot image and the acquired image is analyzed and compared to the welding database which contains CAD data, weld positions, weld parameters, etc. This paper presents a fast and robust algorithm for the Hough Transform. This modified Hough Transform(MHT) algorithm uses the least-squares regression analysis method in order to approximate the edge lines more precisely, and leads to a significant reduction in both computation and storage. In comparison with the conventional seam tracking methods, this new approach has the advantages of low cost, continuous welding, and various type welding.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.76-82
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• 2000

An arc sensor system to compensate positional errors was developed on the foundation of sensor interface system to make use of the on-line shift function of industrial welding robot. Investigating the on-line shift function, we examine the quantitative relationship between the deviation from programmed path and the correction data transferred from personal computer to robot controller. The number of input parameters for weld seam tracking can be reduced by making the relationship between the deviation and the correction data during half weaving be the function of only cross time. With the results of weld seam tracking for the butt joint with V-groove and fillet joint of sheet metal, good performance was implemented. By developing the sensor interface system to compensate the positional errors, industrial welding robot can be expected to contribute to the promotion of welding automation.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.1067-1071
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• 2013

A 3D visual sensing method using a laser structured beam is presented for robotic tracking applications in a simple and reliable manner. A cylindrical shaped laser structured beam is proposed to measure the pose and position of the target surface. When the proposed laser beam intersects on the surface along the target trajectory, an elliptic pattern is generated. Its ellipse parameters can be induced mathematically by the geometrical relationship of the sensor coordinate and target coordinate. The depth and orientation of the target surface are directly determined by the ellipse parameters. In particular, two discontinuous points on the ellipse pattern, induced by seam trajectory, indicate mathematically the 3D direction for robotic tracking. To investigate the performance of this method, experiments with a 6 axis robot system are conducted on two different types of seam trajectories. The results show that this method is very suitable for robot seam tracking applications due to its excellence in accuracy and efficiency.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.59-66
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• 2016

The Gas Metal Arc(GMA) welding, called Metal Inert Gas(MIG) welding, has been an important component in manufacturing industries. A key technology for robotic welding processes is seam tracking system, which is critical to improve the welding quality and welding capacities. The objectives of this study were to develop the intelligent and cost-effective algorithms for image processing in GMA welding which based on the laser vision sensor. Welding images were captured from the CCD camera and then processed by the proposed algorithm to track the weld joint location. The proposed algorithms that commonly used at the present stage were verified and compared to obtain the optimal one for each step in image processing. Finally, validity of the proposed algorithms was examined by using weld seam images obtained with different welding environments for image processing. The results proved that the proposed algorithm was quite excellent in getting rid of the variable noises to extract the feature points and centerline for seam tracking in GMA welding and could be employed for general industrial application.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.19-23
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• 2005

To minimize the weld defect in manufacturing of the welded tube by using $CO_2$ laser, the monitoring of the welding quality and the seam tracking along the butt-joint lengthwise to the tube axis are studied. The longitudinal butt-joint is shaped from $60kgf/mm^2$ grade steel sheet by 2 roll bending method, and welded by the $CO_2$ laser welding system equipped with the seam tracker and plasma sensor. The laser welded tube has the thickness of 1.5mm, diameter of 105.4mm and length of 2000mm. The precise positioning of the laser beam on the butt-joint to be assembled is obtained within $200{\mu}m$ by the laser vision sensor. The artificial defects in the butt-joint are well observed by the signal of plasma intensity measured from the plasma sensor of UV wavelength range within 400nm. The developed $CO_2$ laser tube welding system has the function of the precision seam tracking and the real-time monitoring of the welding quality. In conclusion, the laser welded tube can be used for manufacturing of automobile chassis and components after hydro-forming.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.209-216
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• 2006

A study has been conducted for an optimal processing and an apparatus for manufacturing a laser welded tube for one-body formed bumper beam. The tube dimensions used in calculation were the thickness of 1.4 mm, the diameter of 105.4 mm and the length of 2000 mm. The tube was formed of a cold rolled high strength steel plate(tensile strength of 600 MPa). The two-roll bending method was the optimal tube forming process in comparison with the UO-bending method, the bending method on the press brake, the multi-step continuous roll-forming method and the 3-roll bending method. Monitoring of the welding quality was conducted and the seam tracking along the butt-joint lengthwise to the tube axis was also examined. The longitudinal butt-joint was welded by using a $CO_2$ laser welding machine equipped with a seam tracker and a plasma sensor. The $CO_2$ laser tube welding machine could be used for precise seam tracking and real-time monitoring of the welding quality. As a result, the developed laser welded tube could be used for a one-body formed automobile bumper beam.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.139-141
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• 1996

Among various welding parameters, the welding current which is inversely proportional to the tip-to-workpiece distance in GMAW is an essential parameter to monitor the GMAW process of horizontal fillet joints. For the case of weld defect such as overlap in horizontal fillet welding, therefore, the signal processing for process monitoring or automatic seam tracking should be modified by considering the weld pool surface geometry including the corresponding weld defect. In other words, the adequate signal processing algorithm is indispensible to improve the performance of the arc sensor. However, arc sensor algorithm already developed usually focus on weld seam tracing but do not considering the weld qualities. In this paper, various experiments were carried out to investigate the tendencies of the weld defects when weaving motion is added, and the experimental method based on 2$^n$ factorial design was proposed for deriving the mathematical model between the leg length and the various welding conditions. Moreover, a signal processing method based on the artificial neural network(Adaptive Resonance Theory) was proposed far discriminating the current signal of sound weld beads from that of weld beads with overlap. Finally, the algorithm for weld seam tracking combined with the mathematical modeling and the signal processing method was carried out to track the weld line in conjunction with the improvement of the weld qualities. The reliability of the proposed algorithms were evaluated through various experiments, which showed that the proposed algorithms could be effectively used for arc welding automation.