• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.39-42
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• 2002

• 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.

• 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.16 no.3
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• pp.44-54
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• 1998

In this study a new arc sensor algorithm for automatic weld seam tracking was proposed, which uses the relative welding current variation according to the tip-to-workpiece distance in GMA welding. Since the new developed arc sensor algorithm is not sensitive to unstable factors of arc signal, the system is expected to get rid of the problems of already existing arc sensor system which include the difficulty of modeling the process for various welding conditions and limitation of application to thick plate welding. Thus the system is applicable not only to thick plate welding but also to thin plate welding. To implement the new arc sensor algorithm the system parameters which include sampling time, averaging range, weighting factor of moving averaging, basic compensation time, and basic compensation distance were determined by experimental analysis. Consequently this system has shown the successful tracking capability for the various welding conditions.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.172-175
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• 1997

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.275-277
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• 2003

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.18 no.4
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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 the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.23 no.7 s.184
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• pp.59-66
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• 2006

In laser welding, automatic seam tracking is important to adjust the laser head position in real time as it moves along the seam. Also if the joint gap is occurred, filling the missing material into the joint gap is necessary to prevent welding defects and bad welding quality. In general, the joint gap width is not constant along the seam due to a variety of reason. So it is essential to control the filler wire speed into the joint gap to acquire good welding quality. 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. We call this device as Smart Micro Control system(SMC). To achieve this objective, we assessed weld quality in 2mm sheets of A16061 which had various gap width by using the developed device. From the experimental results, It was found the possibility that the developed device could be used in welding various 3-dimensional structures.

• International Journal of Korean Welding Society
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• v.4 no.1
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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.

• 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.