Welding is almost ubiquitous in our lives, from large vehicles such as airplanes, ships, high-speed trains, and automobiles to small electronic products such as televisions, computers, and smartphones.
As the saying goes, details determine success or failure, and quality is life. For manufacturers of all kinds of products that require welding processes, the importance of welding quality is even more prominent. For example, in many operating environments, the structural strength of welded products must meet certain requirements and be able to withstand strong impacts. This is because if there are serious welding defects in the weld joint, it may cause partial structural fracture under certain conditions, or even lead to major accidents. Investigations into brittle fracture accidents in ships show that 40% of brittle fracture accidents begin at weld defects.
Therefore, a high-quality welding process is crucial.
To ensure precision and efficiency in the welding process and improve weld quality, online/offline accurate measurement of the weld using contour sensors is an essential automated inspection method. Baumer's OXP200 intelligent contour sensor, designed for weld inspection applications, is one such excellent solution.
Improve the quality of automated welding
The quality of welded products depends primarily on the quality defects of the weld seam. Therefore, in automated welding processes, it is often necessary to monitor the welding quality in real time, detect welding defects early, and thus make an objective evaluation of the quality of the welded joint, limiting welding defects to a certain range to ensure equipment and personal safety.
In a welding system mainly composed of a welding machine, intelligent sensors, and a robot /motion control system, the intelligent sensors first scan the point source position information of each contour point in the area. Then, the software algorithm completes the online real-time detection of common welds. The equipment calculates the deviation between the detected weld and the welding torch and outputs the deviation data. The control system adjusts the position of the welding torch according to the detection results and precisely guides the welding torch to automatically weld, thereby realizing intelligent real-time tracking of the weld during the welding process and optimizing and improving the welding quality.
For intelligent sensors, how to cope with the harsh welding environment, how to integrate with welding robots simply and quickly, and how to ensure rapid and powerful real-time detection and analysis capabilities are all issues that must be considered.
Ideal choice
The Baumer OX200 intelligent profile sensor is ideal for efficient online inspection and multidimensional control. Its optimized design allows for integration into image processing systems. With its freely available software development kit (SDK), the OXP200 can also be tailored to specific application requirements. The OXM200 integrates a range of measurement functions, enabling efficient online or offline inspection even without extensive image processing expertise.
In the specific automated welding process, the OXP200 sensor provides point source data for up to 600 contour points (x, z) within its scanning range. The controller can then accurately locate the X-axis coordinates and Z-axis height of the weld seam based on this data, as well as the weld width. With this information, the welding position and degree of weld can be precisely and efficiently controlled.
For automated welding applications, the OXP200 sensor features a compact design and an IP65-rated housing. It is lightweight, easy to wire, can be mounted on a robotic arm, requires no external light source, and provides Power over Ethernet (PoE) via a single cable. These features make it ideal for such applications.
In addition, to adapt to the needs of various types of test objects, the OXP200 series sensors offer a wide variety of parameter settings. The most suitable configuration for the type of test object can be achieved by adjusting important parameters such as the sensor's exposure time and laser level.
