Aiming at automation of welding in dock, Hitachi Zosen Corporation Ariake Works has developed a very unique portable welding robot and started the application for the overhead welding of the Bottom Shell Plates of a ship's hull.
It is characterized by a self-driving function without rails, an automatic seam tracking function, and an adaptive control function for the shape of grooves. The robot can run along a weld line without rails in all setting postures by absorbing on the Bottom Shell Plates using the magnetic crawlers. The robot also enables the automatic seam tracking and the adaptive control of welding parameters for the shape of grooves by the use of laser sensors.
1. Robot System：
The robot system is composed by a robot main body, a controller, a remote box, a gas metal arc welding machine, and a handling/transportation facility to support the operation. Figure 1 shows the outline of robot main body. It is a self-driving type robot driven by two magnetic crawlers mounting a torch driving part and sensors. The robot has three axes motions (X： running direction, Y： transverse direction, Z： vertical direction) controlled by a PC based controller and the weight of robot main body is approximately 45 Kgf.
