Multi‐sensor information fusion in pulsed GTAW based on fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral

Purpose – The status of welding process is difficult to monitor because of the intense disturbance during the process. The purpose of this paper is to use multiple sensors to obtain information about the process from different aspects and use multi‐sensor information fusion technology to fuse the information, to obtain more precise information about the process than using a single sensor alone.Design/methodology/approach – Arc sensor, visual sensor, and sound sensor were used simultaneously to obtain weld current, weld voltage, weld pool's image, and weld sound about the pulsed gas tungsten‐arc welding (GTAW) process. Then special algorithms were used to extract the signal features of different information. Fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral method were used to fuse the extracted signal features to predict the penetration status about the welding process.Findings – Experiment results show that fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral method can effectively utilize the information obtained by different sensors and o...