Adaptive Nontransferred Plasma Charge Sensor and Its Applications

Practical welding control systems require durable/compact sensors to sense the welding process and appropriate control algorithms to produce smooth welds. A novel arc welding sensor, referred to as nontransferred plasma charge sensor, which requires no additional attachment to the torch, has been proved to be reliable for weld pool surface sensing. Aiming at eliminating the effect of manufacturing conditions on the sensor performance, this paper proposes two simple yet effective methods. Specifically, reference signals are sampled either from the bottom or the top surface of the work-piece and used to define relative signals, which can measure the depth of the weld pool with better accuracy. Using improved sensing methods, two groups of welding control experiments, keyhole plasma arc welding and all-position pipe welding, have been conducted, and the effectiveness of the developed sensing/control systems in producing quality welds under various conditions is verified.