The laser/vision sensor has been widely utilized to automate the arc welding process. The conventional laser/vision sensor detects weld seam from the line information of the vertically irradiated laser slit. In this thesis,3 dimensional geometry of a weld structure is acquired using a slantly irradiated laser slit. Weld seam is recognized and gap is measured from the first derivative value of the detected 3 dimensional geometry. The start and end points of the weld seam as well as the geometry of a weld structure are detected. The proposed sensor system and algorithm are evaluated for its possible application to an intelligent sensor system.
