• 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 Welding and Joining
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.208-214
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• 2001

In this study, we constructed a 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 p개cess, 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 or 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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• 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.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.60-67
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• 2000

In this study, we constructed a preview-sensing visual sensor system for weld seam tracking in GMA welding. The visual sensor consists of a CCD camera, a diode laser system with a cylindrical lens and a band-pass-filter to overcome the degrading of image due to spatters and/or arc light. To obtain weld joint position and edge points accurately from the captured image, we compared Hough transform method with central difference method. As a result, we present Hough transform method can more accurately extract the points and it can be applied to real time weld seam tracking. Image processing is carried out to extract straight lines that express laser stripe. After extracting the lines, weld joint position and edge points is determined by intersecting points of the lines. Although a spatter trace is in the image, it is possible to recognize the position of weld joint. Weld seam tracking was precisely implemented with adopting Hough transform method, and it is possible to track the weld seam in the case of offset angle is in the region of $\pm15^{\circ}$.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.15 no.1
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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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• v.1 no.1
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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.

• International Journal of Korean Welding Society
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.23-29
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• 2001

In this study, a preview-sensing visual sensor system is constructed far weld seam tracking in GMA welding. The visual sensor system consists of a CCD camera, a diode laser system with a cylindrical lens, and a band-pass-filter to overcome the degrading of image due to spatters and/or arc light. Among the image processing methods, Hough transform method is compared with the central difference method from a viewpoint of the capability for extracting the accurate feature position. As a result, it was revealed that Hough transform method can more accurately extract the feature positions and it can be applied to real time weld seam tracking. Image processing which includes Hough transform method is carried out to extract straight lines that express laser stripe. After extracting the lines, weld joint position and edge points are determined by intersecting the lines. Even though the image includes a spatter trace on it, it is possible to recognize the position of weld joint. Weld seam tracking was precisely implemented with adopting Hough transform method, and it is possible to track the weld seam in the case of offset angle is in the region of $\pm$ $15^{\circ}$.

• 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.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2000.11a
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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.