THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROJECT IS TO ADVANCE THE STATE-OF-THE-ART OF VISION GUIDED ROBOTIC WELDING (SEAM TRACKING) BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERT SYSTEMS CAPABLE OF ADAPTING THE WELDING PARAMETERS TO COMPENSATE FOR WELDING PROCESS DISTURBANCIES.

THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROJECT IS TO ADVANCE THE STATE-OF-THE-ART OF VISION GUIDED ROBOTIC WELDING (SEAM TRACKING) BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERT SYSTEMS CAPABLE OF ADAPTING THE WELDING PARAMETERS TO COMPENSATE FOR WELDING PROCESS DISTURBANCIES. IN PHASE I OF THE PROJECT, WE WILL FOCUS ON ADAPTATION TO JOINT GEOMETRY VARIATIONS AND ESTABLISH THE FEASIBILITY OF THE OVERALL APPROACH. EXPERIMENTS WILL BE PERFORMED IN ORDER TO ANALYZE THE HUMAN WELDING ENGINEERING EXPERTISE AND KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY FOR THE INTIAL SELECTION, ITERATIVE REFINEMENT, AND ADJUSTMENT OF WELDING PARAMETERS IN RESPONSE TO CONDITION VARIATIONS. A PROTOTYPE RULE-BASED EXPERT SYSTEM FOR JOINT GEOMETRY ADAPTATION WILL BE DEVELOPED IN ORDER TO AUGMENT CONVENTIONAL SEAMTRACKING. DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE WORK WILL BE ESTABLISHED AND PRESENTED IN A PROPOSAL FOR PHASE II.