Abstract
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.
