A Study on a Dual Electromagnetic Sensor System for Weld Seam Tracking of I-Butt Joints

The weld seam tracking system for arc welding process uses various kinds of sensors such as arc sensor, vision sensor, laser displacement sensor 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 I-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 was determined far 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 ㎜, and it was revealed that the system has excellent seam tracking ability for the I-butt joint of sheet metal.