Vision-based initial weld point positioning using the geometric relationship between two seams

This paper presents a novel vision-based initial weld point positioning method for the welding systems of container manufacture. The new method is based on the geometric relationship between the two seams at the two different stages of the whole welding task such as the initialization stage and the welding stage. The torch is aligned with the initial weld point manually at the first stage, and the image feature and the parameters of the seam line are computed. At the second stage, the target image feature of the seam line is firstly computed using the geometric relationship, then the alignment of the torch is automated based on the difference between the target and the current image features. The geometric relationship between the two seams is analyzed, and then the realization of the new method including the image processing, the computation of the parameters of the seam line, and the control system design is given in detail. Finally, experiments are well conducted to prove the effectiveness of the proposed initial weld point positioning method.