Development of Automatic GTAW Technology using Visual Sensor in Narrow Gap all Position

Abstract

In recent manufacturing scene, one of the serious problems is the age of the highly skilled welders. Application of highly full automatic welding system without welder’s skill is needed and the system must keep the quality of the product and the production efficiency. In this study, we developed the full automatic welding system with the visual sensor and adopted this system for narrow gap all position GTAW of piping circumferential joint instead of welder’s highly skill. It was verified that welding was automatically performed using the functions of this system as follows: adaptive control of positions of electrode, adaptive control of positions of filler wire, adaptive control of welding condition (current condition), monitoring electrode consumption.