Real-time seam tracking control technology during welding robot GTAW process based on passive vision sensor

This paper presents a technology about real-time seam tracking, which is necessary to overcome the deficiencies of the teaching-playback welding robots in seam tracking control during gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) process. A set of vision sensor system has been designed for the welding robot, which can acquire clear and steady welding images. By analyzing the features of welding images, a new improved Canny algorithm has been proposed to detect the edges of seam and pool, and extract the characteristic parameters of welding images. Based on the analysis of the characteristic of the real-time seam tracking, a segmented self-adaptive PID controller is introduced to the system, and some experiments have been done to testify whether the accuracy of the technology can meet the requirements of quality control of seam forming. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.