• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.55-63
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• 1998

Among the position sensing methods available, the arc sensor which utilizes the electrical signal obtained from the welding arc itself is one of the most prevalently used methods, because it has an advantage that no particular sensing device is necessary and real-time sensing of a groove position is possible directly under the arc. The authors have already developed a seam tracking system that contains a new arc sensor algorithm, which uses the relative welding current variation according to the tip-to-workpiece distance in GMA welding. In this study a torch height control algorithm for automatic weld seam tracking was proposed for completing the previous system, which uses an on-off control technique. To implement the torch height control algorithm during weld seam tracking the system parameters which include 2nd averaging range, weighting factor for 2nd moving averaging, and Z-directional basic compensation distance were determined by experimental analysis. Finally the two different height control methods, one is simple on-off control and the other on-off control using a reference current value , were compared in their tracking abilities.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.81-91
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• 1997

In this study, a magnetic sensor to make use of eddy current was developed to detect the weld seam of butt joint in the sheet metal arc welding. This system consist of the sensor device for detecting the weld line, the servo control device for driving the weld torch movement and the control unit. A signal processing was applied to smooth the output signal of the sensor. The weld joint was determined by using a 1st order differential method. To improve tracking accuracy of the system, moving average method which has an effect of proportional and weighted integral control was applied to a series of the weld joint positions obtained above. The weld line for tracking was generated by using data regeneration algorithm. Based on these results, each servo motor was controlled by pulse generator. From experimental results, it was revealed that this system has excellent detecting ability for weld line and seam tracking ability.

• International Journal of Korean Welding Society
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.31-38
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• 2001

For the horizontal fillet welding with one plate in a vertical position, there will be a higher tendency of weld metal falling down rather than for the butt-welding in flat position. Such phenomenon could bring about the overlap or deflection of weld pool, and consequently induce the poor mechanical strength of weldments. Therefore, a precise position control of welding torch in conjunction with the weld qualify plays an important role in welding robot applications. In the present study, an experimental method was proposed for deriving a mathematical model between the leg length and the welding conditions. Finally, an algorithm was proposed for weld seam tracking and improvement of the weld quality. The reliability of the proposed algorithm was evaluated through various experiments, which showed that the proposed algorithm can be very effective for tracking the weld line and simultaneously achieving the sound weld bead.

• 한국정밀공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정밀공학회 2000년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.643-646
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• 2000

In this study, we constructed a preview-sensing visual sensor system for weld seam tracking in real time in GMA welding. A sensor part consists of a CCD camera, a band-pass filter, a diode laser system with a cylindrical lens, and a vision board for inter frame process. We used a commercialized robot system which includes a GMA welding machine. To extract the weld seam we used a inter frame process in vision board from that we could remove the noise due to the spatters and fume in the image. Since the image was very reasonable by using the inter frame process, we could use the simplest way to extract the weld seam from the image, such as first differential and central difference method. Also we used a moving average method to the successive position data of weld seam for reducing the data fluctuation. In experiment the developed robot system with visual sensor could be able to track a most popular weld seam, such as a fillet-joint, a V-groove, and a lap-joint of which weld seam include planar and height directional variation.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.102-110
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• 1998

The horizontal fillet welding is prevalently used in heavy and ship building industries to fabricate the large scale structures. A deep understanding of the horizontal fillet welding process is restricted, because the phenomena occurring in welding are very complex and highly non-linear characteristics. To achieve the satisfactory weld bead geometry in robot welding system, the seam tracking algorithm should be reliable. The number of seam tracker was developed for arc welding automation by now. Among these seam tracker, the arc sensor is prevalently used in industrial robot welding system because of its low cost and flexibility. However, the accuracy of arc sensor would be decreased due to the electrical noise and metal transfer. In this study, the signal processing algorithm based on the neural network was implemented to enhance the reliability of measured welding current signals. Moreover, the seam tracking algorithm in conjunction with the signal processing algorithm was implemented to trace the center of weld line. It was revealed that the neural network could be effectively used to predict the welding current signal at the end of weaving.

• International Journal of Korean Welding Society
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.30-37
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• 2004

There have been continuous efforts on automating welding processes. This automation process could be said to fall into two categories, weld seam tracking and weld quality evaluation. Recently, the attempts to achieve these two functions simultaneously are on the increase. For the study presented in this paper, a vision sensor is made, a vision system is constructed and using this, the 3 dimensional geometry of the bead is measured on-line. For the application as in welding, which is the characteristic of nonlinear process, a fuzzy controller is designed. And with this, an adaptive control system is proposed which acquires the bead height and the coordinates of the point on the bead along the horizontal fillet joint, performs seam tracking with those data, and also at the same time, controls the bead geometry to a uniform shape. A communication system, which enables the communication with the industrial robot, is designed to control the bead geometry and to track the weld seam. Experiments are made with varied offset angles from the pre-taught weld path, and they showed the adaptive system works favorable results.

• 대한기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한기계학회 2003년도 춘계학술대회
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• pp.917-922
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• 2003

In this paper, a high speed rotating arc sensor for automatic fillet welding is introduced. In order to track the welding seam, The high speed rotating arc sensor is used. The welding tip of a high speed rotating arc sensor rotates about 3000 rpm using DC motor. The rotating torch is driven by gear between welding torch body and wire guide. The welding current is measured by using the current sensor and rot at ing position sensor. To realize the welding seam tracking algorithm with accuracy, a software filter algorithm using the moving average method is applied to the measured welding current in the microprocessor. The welding mobile robot with two wheels and two sliders is developed for fillet welding. The welding mobile robot can control its traveling direction and turn itself around the corner. The effectiveness is proven through the experimental results conducted with varied fillet tracking patterns.

• 대한용접접합학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한용접접합학회 1999년도 특별강연 및 추계학술발표대회 개요집
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• pp.62-65
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• 1999

• 한국정보통신학회논문지
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• 제7권5호
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• pp.1019-1025
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• 2003

조선과 자동차 등의 금속 가공분야의 용접산업부분에서는 용접을 하기 위해 여러 종류의 용접선 추적 센서들이 사용되고 있다. 용접선을 검출하는 센서에는 용접모재와 센서의 접촉여부에 따라 접촉식과 비접촉식 센서로 크게 대별할 수 있고, 현 산업전반에서는 대부분 접촉식 센서를 사용하고 있다. 본 논문에서도 접촉식센서의 일종인 스트레인 게이지를 응용하여 센서를 제작하여 용접부위를 얼마나 잘 추적하는지 실험하였다. 실험장치는 스트레인 게이지 센서, 스트레인 게이지 신호의 증폭회로, 삼각파 발생기, MOSFET 파워 드라이버 회로와 DC 모터로 구동되는 X-Y 슬라이더 등으로 구성되어 있다. 용접선의 추적범위는 상하좌우로 동작을 하고 스트레인 게이지의 저항변화가 X-Y 슬라이더에 연결된 DC 모터를 구동시키게 된다. 실험결과 용접부위를 센서가 잘 추적하는 것을 확인할 수 있었고, 실제 산업현장에 있어서 적용가능성에 대해서 알아보았다.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• 제21권7호
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• pp.34-41
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• 2003

Weld quality monitoring and seam tracking along the butt-joint lengthwise to the tube axis are studied. The material of tube is 60kg/$\textrm{mm}^2$ grade steel sheet, and the longitudinal butt-joint is shaped by 2 roll bending machine. The tube with a thickness of 1.5mm, diameter of 105.4mm and length of 2000mm is successfully obtained by the $CO_2$ laser welding system equipped with a seam tracker and plasma sensor. Experimental results show that the developed welding system can be used for the precision seam tracking and the real-time monitoring of weld quality, and the laser welded tube can be used for car body md component after tubular hydroforming.