Design Considerations for an Active Laser Vision Based Control for Intelligent Robotic Welding System

The use of active laser vision in automated robotic welding has proven to be the most effective means of finding, tracking and profiling of welding seams, due to its non-invasive means and accurate results. To design an active laser
vision based control for robotic welding, special attention has to be paid to the factors that may affect the accuracy and parameters of the vision system. Factors such as, welding environmental conditions like smoke and arc lights disturbance, structure of the welding seam, nature of the laser, type of optical filters to be used and nature of the imaging sensor. In this paper, the design steps and parameter choice to confront each of the aforementioned factors
will be presented. The parameters required for the design of the system will be explored. A particular emphasis is given to the compromise between optical system hardware and image processing software in order to have a cost
effective vision control system without sacrificing the accuracy. The features of final design of an economic active laser vision system and its integration with KUKA robot will also be discussed.