DYNAMIC NEURO-FUZZY-BASED HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

MODELING AND CONTROL IN GTAW

ABSTRACT
Human welders experiences and skills are critical for producing quality welds in manual
gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) process. In this paper, a neuro-fuzzy-based human
intelligence model is constructed and implemented as an intelligent controller in automated
GTAW process to maintain a consistent desired full penetration. An innovative vision system is
utilized to real-time measure the specular 3D weld pool surface under strong arc light
interference. Experiments are designed to produce random changes in the welding speed and
voltage resulting in fluctuations in the weld pool surface. Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system
(ANFIS) is proposed to correlate the human welders response to the 3D weld pool surface as
characterized by its width, length and convexity. Closed-loop control experiments are conducted
to verify the robustness of the proposed controller. It is found that the human intelligence model
can adjust the current to robustly control the process to a desired penetration state despite
different initial conditions and various disturbances. A foundation is thus established to explore
the mechanism and transformation of human welders intelligence into robotic welding systems.