Abstract
The sensors employed in the robotic are welding system must detect the changes in weld characteristics and produce the output that is in some way related to the change being detected. Such adaptive systems, which synchronise the robot arm and eyes using a primitive brain will form the basis for the development of robotic GMA(Gas Metal Arc) welding which increasingly higher levels of artificial intelligence. The objective of this paper is to realize the mapping characteristics of bead height through learning. After learning, the neural estimation can estimate the bead height desired from the learning mapping characteristic. The design parameters of the neural network estimator(the number of hidden layers and the number of nodes in a layer) are chosen from an estimation error analysis. A series of bead of bead-on-plate GMA welding experiments was carried out in order to verify the performance of the neural network estimator. The experimental results show that the proposed neural network estimator can predict the bead height with reasonable accuracy and guarantee the uniform weld quality.
