Seam tracking based on estimation of weld position using Kalman filtering

A seam tracking method is presented based on the estimation of weld position during the gas tungsten arc welding process. Kalman filtering of the weld pool images from a visual sensor is applied to compute recursively the solution to the weld position equations which are established based on an estimation of the centroid position of the weld pool images. This centroid, the position of which corresponds with the weld position, is extracted as the measurement eigenvector. The evolution of the weld position data from the weld pool images can be described through an appropriate process model, so that the weld position can be detected by applying a Kalman filter. This allows adjustment of the welding torch position in real time, which may significantly reduce processing time and promote seam tracking accuracy. Simulations and actual welding experiments have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in the presence of weld pool image noise and have demonstrated the robustness of weld position detection for seam tracking.