Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

John Forrest

Joshua L Solomon

Michael G Poss

Brian Dellamora

A welding setup includes an adjustable material feed system for a consumable welding wire. Speed sensors measure the speed of the wire progressing through the material feed system. A control module controls the material feed system to draw the wire into the material feed system and progress the wire to a working end of the welding setup. Speed data is sampled from the speed sensor during diagnostic duration and wire slip may be determined from the speed data and a reference speed.

Process wire feed diagnosis and recovery

Presented are intelligent non-autogenous metalworking systems and control logic for automated wire-to-beam alignment, methods for making/using such systems, and robot-borne laser welding/brazing heads with closed-loop control for real-time wire alignment. A method for controlling operation of a non-autogenous workpiece processing system includes a system controller receiving sensor signals from a position sensor indicative of a location of filler wire discharged into a joint region by a wire feeder. Using the received sensor signals, the controller determines a displacement between the wire location and a location of a beam emitted onto the joint region by a beam emitter. If the wire displacement is greater than a threshold wire displacement value, the controller responsively determines a corrective force calculated to reduce wire displacement to below the threshold wire displacement value. The controller then commands the actuator to pivot the processing head to thereby apply the corrective force to the discharging filler wire.

Intelligent non-autogenous metalworking systems and control logic with automated wire-to-beam alignment

A method for object distance detection and focal positioning in relation thereto. The method comprising the steps of: (a) identifying (via a computing device) a desired distance among a plurality of designated sites on an object; (b) adjusting a focus (via an autofocus device) onto the plurality of designated sites; (c) calculating (via an image recognition module) the actual distance among the plurality of designated sites; (d) determining (via the image recognition module) if error exist between the actual distance and the desired distance; and (e) wherein (in no particular order) repeating the steps of (b), (c), and (d) until no substantial error exists between the actual distance and the desired distance.

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Grosse Pointe Woods, MI, United States of America

John Forrest