Software for Weld Sensing and Control

Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) accounts for a significant proportion of all welding performed. Due to its relatively high speeds and metal deposition rates as well as relatively low equipment and maintenance costs, it is also the most popular process for automated, and especially robotic, welding. There are, however, problems that significantly restrict its manufacturing applications. The efforts at NIST have been to characterize the effects of process variations on arc stability and weld quality. NIST has developed several software modules and sensors that have the ability to characterize the GMA weld quality and potentially significantly improve the process stability. We believe that widespread industry acceptance of these modules depends upon integration of the NIST software with a user friendly as well ad industrially hardened and proven high speed control and data acquisition systems. The Phase 1 objective will be to demonstrate the NIST technologies and sensors on an existing AMET control and data acquisition system using a open multi- processor, digital signal processor (DSP), oriented architecture. The second objective is to develop a basic PC computer interface, in Windows95. This system will provide simple weld monitoring, running the NIST modules on the same DSP boards as the AMET system.