Robust welding seam tracking using image seam extraction

Abstract

Extracting single pixel wide paths is the core image processing problem in many vision based welding seam tracking applications. Traditional techniques such as edge detection and image thinning may not be effective for solving this problem on low quality welding images polluted by process noises. Based on the understanding of the prior knowledge about the welding images, we present in this paper a welding seam tracking method using the image seam extraction technique. Owing to its optimisation nature, the proposed method is robust to strong image noises caused by environmental factors such as uneven illumination, light interferences and welding spatters. In addition, the proposed method is of low time complexity and is highly adaptive to different types of welding images. Experimental results on a variety of welding images validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.