Vision tracking system for narrow butt seams with CO2 gas shielded arc welding

An image-based visual system is proposed for narrow butt welding seam tracking in container manufacturing. A smart camera is used as the sensor to measure the welding seam. The feature extraction algorithm is designed based on the smart camera, which is used to compute the error between the welding torch and the welding seam. The reference feature is determined with many frames of images based on their statistical property. The current estimated feature is checked based on the reference feature. The abnormal features caused by strong noises such as welding arc light, splashes and fog are rejected. The normal features are used for welding seam tracking. A compact vision system for tracking seams is presented, which employs a programmable controller to control a stepper motor to eliminate the error detected by the smart camera. Experiments are well conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed system and method.