• Laser Solutions
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.17-23
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• 2010

It is very important to track a complicate weld seam for the welding automation. Very recently, laser vision sensor becomes a useful sensing tool to find the seams. Until now, however studies of welding automation using a laser vision sensor, focused on either image processing or feature recognition from CCD camera. Even though it is possible to use a simple algorithm for tracking a simple seam, it is extremely difficult to develop a seam-tracking algorithm when the seam is more complex. To overcome these difficulties, this study introduces a simulation system to develop the seam tracking algorithm. This method was verified experimentally to reduce the time and effort to develop the seam tracking algorithm, and to implement the sensing device.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.438-443
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• 2006

The probe type sensor using strain gauges was used to track a container box's seam in this paper. A strain gauge has a property which the specific resistance is changed by varying of the sectional area and length when tensile and compressive stresses are generated at the strain gauge. We designed the automatic seam tracking device by attaching the probe type strain gauge sensor, motor driving slide, encorder to check the moving distance and interface card connected MPU upside the speed controllable carriage. The folded work piece for a container box is made to examine whether the device can track the seam automatically or not. Seam tracking experiments were done by changing the carriage moving speed at 300. 400. 500. 600[mm/min] each as the voltage of side track was 2.5[V]. We compared and analyzed the sampling data which is obtained by output voltage of strain gauge sensor and rotary encorder pulse every 100 [m/s]. The welding experiments were performed by using $CO_2$ welding machine about the carriage moving speed that has good seam tracking condition in the seam tracking experiments above. And we compared the seam tracking status.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.113-121
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• 1996

The arc sensor has been most widely used for weld seam tracking through welding current or voltage variation. In this work, the relation between the arc light intensity and welding condition is investigated using heat balance in the Plasma for its possible application to seam tracking in the GMAW process. The arc light intensity is derived to be the function of the arc length and welding current Experiments are carried out to verify the proposed heat balance model. Performances of least square and integration methods to process the signals for seam tracking are compared experimentally. Predicted arc light intensity shows reasonably good agreement with experimental results. The weld seam is successfully tracked through the arc light intensity. The least square and integration methods demonstrate almost same performance of seam tracking with $CO_2$gas shielding.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.9-18
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• 2007

There have been continuous efforts for automation of joint tracking system. This automation process is mainly used to do in root pass of gas metal arc welding in the field of heavy industry and shipbuilding etc. For automation, it is important using of vision sensor. Welding robot with vision sensor is used for weld seam tracking on welding fabrication. Recently, it is used to on post-weld inspection for weld quality evaluation. For real time seam tracking, it is very important role in vision process technique. Vision process is included in filtering and thinning, segmentation processing, feature extraction and recognition. In this paper, it has shown performance comparison results of seam tracking for real time root pass on gas metal arc welding. It can be concluded better segment splitting method than iterative averaging technique in the performance results of seam tracking.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2701-2706
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• 2003

This paper describes weld seam tracking and error compensation methods of automatic plasma arc welding system designed for the corrugation panel that consists of a linear section and a curved section with various curvatures. Realizing automatic welding system, we are faced with two problems. One is a precise seam tracking and the other is an arc length control. Due to the complexity of the panel shape, it is difficult to find a seam and operate a torch manually in the welding process. So, laser vision sensor for seam tracking is equipped for sensing the seam position and controlling the height of a torch automatically. To attain more precise measurement of an arc length, we measure the 3D shape of the panel and analyze error factors according to the various panel states and caused errors are predicted through the welding process. Using that result, compensation algorithm is added to that of arc length control and real time error compensation is achieved. The result shows that these two methods work effectively.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.1506-1511
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• 2003

This paper describes an automatic weld seam tracking method of plasma arc welding system designed for the corrugation panel that consists of a linear section and a curved section with various curvatures. Due to the complexity of the panel shape, it is difficult to find a seam and operate a torch manually in the welding process. So, the laser vision sensor for seam tracking is designed for sensing the seam position and controlling a torch automatically. To achieve precise seam tracking, the design of sensor head, image simulation, and calibration are carried out. Through a series of experiment result, compensation algorithm is added and real time error compensation is achieved. The experiment result shows that this vision sensor works effectively. It will provide more precise welding performance and convenience to the operator.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.66-72
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• 2005

An electromagnetic inductive sensor consisted of one exciter and three separated (triple) detectors has been developed for both tracking the weld seam of a workpiece and controlling the sensor-to-workpiece distance (height) simultaneously. The left and right detectors are used to track the seam, while the fore and the other two detectors allow the sensor to determine the height and the gap width by being coupled their outputs together. A series of experiments with the proposed sensor located above a mild steel plate containing a weld seam of gap are carried out to examine the feasibility of the sensor. The results revealed that the proposed sensor could fairly well track the desired seam and also well control the height to be constant even when the gap width of the seam varied. The gap width can be also determined during the seam tracking by using the sensor outputs. As a consequence, these can provide the developed sensor with substantial improvement for industrial uses with respect to the previous electromagnetic sensors being used for the weld seam tracking.

• Special Issue of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• 2013.12a
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• pp.73-80
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• 2013

From broad point of view, seam tracking has been one of main issues with respect to welding automation. Several attempts have been successful for seam tracking of fixed weaving width. As a solution of the seam tracking methods for varying groove width, the visual sensors such as CCD cameras have been adopted. Although the vision sensing techniques can achieve high accuracy, the weak point is that well-prepared vision sensor environment should be required to obtain high-quality visual measurements which can be easily affected by significant noises in industrial areas. This paper proposed an alternative seam tracking algorithm for narrow groove. A special measurement device for arc voltage, in this study, is developed to enhance the reliability of the measured welding signals. Based on the developed arc sensor algorithm, an automatic weld-width tracking algorithm is also proposed, which is able to predict the weld-position more accurately. The usefulness of the automatic weld-width tracking algorithm was well verified by applying it to gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW).

• 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 Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.144-149
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• 2001

There are many types of seam tracking methods actually used in industrial spot. Lately, Non-contact sensor technics are mostly used because non-contact sensor has more advantage than contact sensor in many parts. This paper also concerned about fiber sensor a kind of non-contact sensor. X-Y robot and fiber sensor scan the seam tracking to be weld. After scanning, X-Y robot moves the first working point of being scanned and welding starts automatically. It makes an experiment on some types of Seam tracking like straight line tracking, leaned line tracking and curved line tracking to confirm how well the fibers sensor tracks the seam pass to be weld. And the seam pass that had been tracked was welded by inverter $CO_2$ voiding machine.