• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• 제16권5호
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• pp.119-133
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• 1998

To implement full automation in pipe welding, it si most important to develop special sensors and their related systems which act like human operator when detecting irregular groove conditions. In this study, an automatic pipe Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) system was proposed to full control pipe welding procedure with intelligent sensor systems. A five-axes manipulator was proposed for welding torch to automatically access to exact welding position when pipe size and welding angle were given. Pool status and torch position were measured by using a weld-pool image monitoring and processing technique in root-pass welding for weld seam tracking and weld pool control. To overcome the intensive arc light, pool image was captured at the instance of short circuit of welding power loop. Captured image was processed to determine weld pool shape. For weld seam tracking, the relative distance of a torch position from the pool center was calculated in the extracted pool shape to move torch just onto the groove center. To control penetration of root pas, gap was calculated in the extracted pool image, and then weld conditions were controlled for obtaining appropriate penetration. welding speed was determined with a fuzzy logic, and welding current and voltage were determined from a data base to correspond to the gap. For automatic fill-pass welding, the function of human operator of real time weld seam control can be substituted by a sensor system. In this study, an arc sensor system was proposed based on a fuzzy control logic. Using the proposed automatic system, root-pass welding of pipe which had gap variation was assured to be appropriately controlled in welding conditions and in torch position by showing sound welding result and good seam tracking capability. Fill-pass welding by the proposed system also showed very successful result by tracking along the offset welding line without any control of human operator.

• 한국정밀공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정밀공학회 2005년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.950-955
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• 2005

This paper describes an intelligent filler wire feeding device which can control 3- dimensional seam tracking and the filler wire speed by measuring the gap position and the joint gap width in laser welding. By means of visual sensor controlled filling the missing material into the joint gap and 3 dimensional seam tracking, lineup errors from manufacturing tolerances and the repeatability of lineup jigs and weld robot can be balanced and at an even seam quality which avoids weld defects. In this paper, we assessed weld quality in 2mm sheets of A16061 which had various gap width by using the intelligent filler wire feeding device.

• 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.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• 제18권4호
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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.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.20-28
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• 1991

The main subject of this study is the construction of an automatic welding system that has the capability to trace the weld seam in GMA welding of lap joints. The system was composed of a vision sensor, moving torch, and personal computer(IBM-PC). In the developed vision sensor, an image was captured by the frame grabber at the time of short circuit during welding. The threshold method was adopted for determining the structured light and the central difference method for detecting the weld joint. And the seam tracing of the torch was performed by using the data regeneration algorithm. In this system using the image at the time of short circuit, weld seam tracking was performed without any relations to arc light and spatters.

• 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.

• 한국정밀공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정밀공학회 1997년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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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

• 한국정보통신학회논문지
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.144-149
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• 2001

산업현장의 열악한 작업중의 하나인 용접작업을 자동화하기 위한 방법으로 본 논문은 비접촉식 센서인 Fiber Sensor를 이용하여 용접선을 1차적으로 추적하고, 추적한 데이터를 텍스트 파일로 저장함과 통시에 2차적으로 추적한 용접선을 X-Y 로봇의 좌표값으로 다시 출력하여 용접을 하도록 하고 있다. Fiber Sensor를 통하여 읽어 들인 데이터는 Delphi Version 3.0을 이용하여 만들어진 프로그램을 통하여 처리하였고, I/O 입출력은 16 채널의 Relay Actuator 출력과 16 채널의 opto-isolated 입력이 가능한 PC의 ISA슬롯에 직접 삽입하여 사용하는 카드를 통해서 이루어졌다. 본 실험에서 용접선 추적은 직선, 기울기를 가진 직선 및 곡선에 관하여 추적을 행하였고, 추적한 데이터를 토대로 인버터 $CO_2$ 용접기를 사용하여 용접을 행하여 보았다.

• 한국정보통신학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국해양정보통신학회 2000년도 추계종합학술대회
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• pp.558-561
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• 2000

산업 현장의 열악한 작업중의 하나인 용접작업을 자동화하기 위한 방법으로 본 논문은 비접촉식 센서인 Fiber Sensor를 이용하여 용접선을 1차적으로 추적하고, 추적한 데이터를 텍스트 파일로 저장함과 동시에 2차적으로 추적한 용접선을 X-Y 로봇의 좌표값으로 다시 출력하여 용접을 하도록 하고 있다 Fiber Sensor를 통하여 읽어 들인 데이터는 Delphi Version 3.0을 이용하여 만들어진 프로그램을 통하여 처리하였고, I/O 입출력은 16 채널의 Relay Actuator 출력과 16 채널의 opto-isolated 입력이 가능한 PC의 ISA 슬롯에 직접 삽입하여 사용하는 카드를 통해서 이루어졌다. 본 실험에서 용접선 추적은 직선, 기울기를 가진 직선 및 곡선에 관하여 추적을 행하였고, 추적한 데이터를 토대로 인버터 CO2용접기를 사용하여 용접을 행하여 보았다.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• 제14권6호
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• pp.131-139
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• 1996

The response of the arc sensor using the welding current and/or welding voltage as its outputs has been obtained by the analysis and/or experiments of the static characteristics of arc sensor. But in order to improve the reliability of arc sensor, it is necessary to know its dynamic characteristics. So in this paper, it is presented the dynamic model of arc sensor including the power source, arc voltage, electrode burnoff rate, and wire feed rate. A numerical simulation of the dynamic model of arc sensor was implemented, computing the welding current with input of CTWD. The results of computer simulations and experiments of $CO_2$arc welding showed that a linear relationship between weaving center - weld line distance and current area difference was established. Additionally, a real-time weld seam tracking system interfaced with industrial welding robot was constructed, the result of the weld seam tracking experiment for weld line with an initial offset error of 5$^{\circ}$was good.