• 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 the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.64-74
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• 2007

Because of the size and environment in the shipbuilding process, the portable type robot is required for the automatic seam tracking. For this reason, the structure of laser sensor should be considered in the initial design step and the coordinate transformation between welding robot and laser sensor, which is joint finder, must be identified exactly and the real time tracking algorithm based on these consideration could be developed. In this research, laser displacement sensor in which its structure is laser beam's vertical projection, is developed to recognize the location of weld joint. In practical applications, however, images of weld joints are often degraded because of the surface specularity or spatter. To overcome the problem, the constrained joint finding algorithm is proposed. In the approach of coordinate conversion rule for the visual feedback control among welding torch, robot body and laser sensor is applied by the same reference point method. In the real time seam tracking algorithms we propose constrained sampling method which uses look ahead distance. The RLS(Recursive Least Square) filter is applied to obtain the smooth tracking path from the sensitive edge data. From the experimental results, we could see the possibility that the developed laser sensor with proposed processing algorithm and real time seam tracking method can be used as a welding under the shipbuilding condition.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.2701-2706
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• 2003

This paper describes weld seam tracking and error compensation methods of automatic plasma arc welding system designed for the corrugation panel that consists of a linear section and a curved section with various curvatures. Realizing automatic welding system, we are faced with two problems. One is a precise seam tracking and the other is an arc length control. Due to the complexity of the panel shape, it is difficult to find a seam and operate a torch manually in the welding process. So, laser vision sensor for seam tracking is equipped for sensing the seam position and controlling the height of a torch automatically. To attain more precise measurement of an arc length, we measure the 3D shape of the panel and analyze error factors according to the various panel states and caused errors are predicted through the welding process. Using that result, compensation algorithm is added to that of arc length control and real time error compensation is achieved. The result shows that these two methods work effectively.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.1506-1511
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• 2003

This paper describes an automatic weld seam tracking method of plasma arc welding system designed for the corrugation panel that consists of a linear section and a curved section with various curvatures. Due to the complexity of the panel shape, it is difficult to find a seam and operate a torch manually in the welding process. So, the laser vision sensor for seam tracking is designed for sensing the seam position and controlling a torch automatically. To achieve precise seam tracking, the design of sensor head, image simulation, and calibration are carried out. Through a series of experiment result, compensation algorithm is added and real time error compensation is achieved. The experiment result shows that this vision sensor works effectively. It will provide more precise welding performance and convenience to the operator.

• 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.

• 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 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 $\pm15^{\circ}$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1996.04a
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• pp.680-684
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• 1996

Welding systems cannot adapt to changes in the joint geometry which may occur due to a variety of reason. Automatic seam tracking technigue is essential to adjust the welding torch position in real time as it moves along the seam. Automatic tracking system must keep the welding speed constant unrelation to the change of the welding path. Therefore, the information from the laser displacement sensor must be converted into the input to operate the X-Y table and to rotate the desired torch position by proposed algorithm. In this research, laser displacement sensor is used as a seam finder in the automatic tracking system. X-Y moving table manipulated by ac servo motor controls the position and velocity of the torch-and-sensor part. DC motor controls the position and velocity of the torch. X-Y table controls the position of sensor and relative position of torch is controlled by dc motor which is mounted at sensor-and-torch part. Sensor is always ahead of torch to preview the weld line. From the experimental results, we could see the possiblity that the laser displacement sensor can be used as a seam finder in welding process and that the seam tracking system controlled by proposed algorithm is well done.

• 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 $\pm$ $15^{\circ}$.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.209-216
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• 2006

A study has been conducted for an optimal processing and an apparatus for manufacturing a laser welded tube for one-body formed bumper beam. The tube dimensions used in calculation were the thickness of 1.4 mm, the diameter of 105.4 mm and the length of 2000 mm. The tube was formed of a cold rolled high strength steel plate(tensile strength of 600 MPa). The two-roll bending method was the optimal tube forming process in comparison with the UO-bending method, the bending method on the press brake, the multi-step continuous roll-forming method and the 3-roll bending method. Monitoring of the welding quality was conducted and the seam tracking along the butt-joint lengthwise to the tube axis was also examined. The longitudinal butt-joint was welded by using a $CO_2$ laser welding machine equipped with a seam tracker and a plasma sensor. The $CO_2$ laser tube welding machine could be used for precise seam tracking and real-time monitoring of the welding quality. As a result, the developed laser welded tube could be used for a one-body formed automobile bumper beam.