Active Error Compensating Welding Fixture System for Auto Body

The welding fixtures are the most important devices for an auto body welding assembly line. The current special fixtures used by many automotive manufactures are only fit for one or several specific welding processes, and the dimensional problem in the circle due to several variation sources accumulation has no adjustment. The active error compensating welding fixture system for auto body is designed and manufactured. The detecting model, coordinate transformation model, and adjusting model based on auto body coordinate system are presented. The dowel pin modular design is adopted in the structure of the fixture to suit different workpieces with some similar characteristics. The online detection and adaptive control system using eddy current sensors and adaptive adjusting devices is analyzed. Three kinds of the left rear wheel covers SGM60 are selected to test workpieces of the developed system, and the active error compensating experiments are performed in the lab for many times. Test results show the validity of mechanism reconfigurations, on-line detections and error compensations of the developed welding fixture.