Realizing precision pulse TIG welding with arc length control and visual image sensing based weld detection

Methods of arc length control and visual image based weld detection for precision pulse TIG welding were investigated. With a particular all hardware circuit, arc voltage during peak current stage is sampled and integrated to indicate arc length, deviation of arc length and adjusting parameters are calculated and output to drive a step motor directly. According to the features of welding image grabbed with CCD camera, a special algorithm was developed to detect the central line of weld fast and accurately. Then an application system were established, whose static arc length error is ±0.1 mm with 20 A average current and 1 mm given arc length, static detection precision of weld is 0.01 mm , processing time of each image is less than 120 ms . Precision pulse TIG welding of some given thin stainless steel components with complicated curved surface was successfully realized.

Visual sensing and morphological image processing of weld pool in laser spot welding

A visual sensing system was established to monitor the weld pool in laser spot welding. The top-hat and bottom-hat transformation algorithms based on mathematical morphology were used to compensate for non-uniform contrast of weld pool edge. Moreover, the canny edge detector was applied to extract the weld paol profile. The edge detected results show that the morphological operation is obviously superior to the traditional contrast enhancement method. In addition, the combination of dilation and erosion was applied to eliminate the irrelevant edge details, and the smooth weld pool edge was acquired. Based on the image processing technology described above, the dynamic process of weld pool diameter during laser spot welding was obtained.

Detection and processing of molten-pool image of electron-beam deep-penetration welding based on visual sensing

A visual sensing system was developed. The system is suitable for titanium-alloy electron-beam welding, and senses and detects molten-pool dynamic processes. A suite of processing programs for colored molten-pool images in titanium-alloy electron-beam welding was developed using Matlab software; molten-pool edge images are completely obtained using the program. The Matlab software was used to write a program which could extract the molten-pool width. The functional relationship between the molten-pool width and penetration under the experimental conditions was obtained by a curve-fitting method, and provided the theoretical basis for further penetration control.

Quantification of Blur and Its Applications

Human visual sense has two aspects in our feeling for blurred image, that is, one is the amount of blur depending on object size, the other is the amount of blur independent of the object size. In the former for example, when the image size becomes larger, the author feels smaller amount blur. The quantitative evaluation based on entropy for blurred images is proposed in this paper. The author calls this metric ＂variation entropy＂. This metric has two kinds of aspects that coincide with the human visual sense. The first is the absolute evaluation of blur, and the second is the relative evaluation of blur. The former can be quantified by variation entropy for a unit boundary length （or L-type variation entropy： HL ）, which is dependent on resolution, and the latter can be quantified by variation entropy for a unit area （or A-type variation entropy： H^A ）, which is independent of resolution. These two metrics have complementary properties. At last, two variation entropies are applied to the standard kanji character database, and then the strong relation between variation entropy and accuracy of recognition is discussed. The tendency of writing skills for grades is evaluated by applying the metric to a database collected from school children.

Weld pool boundary and weld bead shape reconstruction based on passive vision in P-GMAW

A passive visual sensing system is established in this research, and clear weld pool images in pulsed gas metal arc welding （ P-GMA W） can be captured with this system. The three-dimensional weld pool geometry, especially the weld height, is not only a crucial factor in determining workpiece mechanical properties, but also an important parameter for reflecting the penetration. A new three-dimensional （3D） model is established to describe the weld pool geometry in P-GMAW. Then, a series of algorithms are developed to extract the model geometrical parameters from the weld pool images. Furthermore, the method to reconstruct the 3 D shape of weld pool boundary and weld bead from the two-dimensional images is investigated.

Modeling the radiometric imaging process of weld pool

In the vision monitoring or controlling the arc welding process, it is a prerequisite to get a clear image of weld pool. However, the disturbance of arc radiation makes imaging of weld pool difficult and optical filters are usually used to improve the image quality. In this paper, a radiometric imaging model is established to investigate the influence of the filter on the image quality of the weld pool, in which the spectral distribution of weld pool radiation, the spectral transmittance of the filter, the spectral sensitivity of the camera are all considered. With the proposed model, the influence of the factors on weld pool imaging can be inferred and the selection of optical filters is discussed.