Trends of Sensor-based Intelligent Arc Welding Robot System

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce an intelligent robotic arc welding system which exploits sensors like as LVS (Laser Vision Sensor), Hall effect sensor, voltmeter and so on. The use of industrial robot is saturated because of its own limitation, and one of the major limitations is that industrial robot cannot recognize the environment. Lately, sensor-based environmental awareness research of the industrial robot is performed actively to overcome such limitation, and it can expand application field and improve productivity. We classify the sensor-based intelligent arc welding robot system by the goal and the sensing data. The goals can be categorized into detection of a welding start point, tracking of a welding line and correction of a torch deformation. The Sensing data can be categorized into welding data (i.e. current, voltage and short circuit detection) and displacement data (i.e. distance, position). This paper covers not only the explanation of the each category but also its advantage and limitation.