A Study on Development of an Electromagnetic Inductive Sensor for Automatic Weld Seam Tracking

Bae, Kang-Yul

Journal of KWJS 2005;23(4):66-72.
Published online September 22, 2005.

[연구논문]용접선 자동추적용 전자기유도센서의 개발에 관한 연구

A Study on Development of an Electromagnetic Inductive Sensor for Automatic Weld Seam Tracking

Abstract

An electromagnetic inductive sensor consisted of one exciter and three separated (triple) detectors has been developed for both tracking the weld seam of a workpiece and controlling the sensor-to-workpiece distance (height) simultaneously. The left and right detectors are used to track the seam, while the fore and the other two detectors allow the sensor to determine the height and the gap width by being coupled their outputs together. A series of experiments with the proposed sensor located above a mild steel plate containing a weld seam of gap are carried out to examine the feasibility of the sensor. The results revealed that the proposed sensor could fairly well track the desired seam and also well control the height to the constant even when the gap width of the seam varied. The gap width can be also determined during the seam tracking by using the sensor outputs. As a consequence, these can provide the developed sensor with substantial improvement for industrial uses with respect to the previous electromagnetic sensors being used for the weld seam tracking.