An integrated system for intelligent seam tracking in robotic welding. Conceptual and analytical development

The concept, theory, and the issues that are pertinent to the design and implementation of an adaptive real-time, intelligent seam tracker (ARTIST) are discussed. ARTIST is designed to operate in the unstructured environment of 3-D seams without preprogramming. A salient feature of the ARTIST design is that the tracking errors in any cycle do not affect the system performance during subsequent cycles. The conceptual and analytical development of a two-tier hierarchical control scheme for ARTIST is presented. The high-level controller models and interacts with the global seam environment while the low-level controller positions the torch over the seam with the correct orientation