Image processing algorithm for automated monitoring of metal transfer in double-electrode GMAW

Controlled metal transfer in gas metal arc welding (GMAW) implies controllable weld quality. To understand, analyse and control the metal transfer process, the droplet should be monitored and tracked. To process the metal transfer images in double-electrode GMAW (DE-GMAW), a novel modification of GMAW, a brightness-based algorithm is proposed to locate the droplet and compute the droplet size automatically. Although this algorithm can locate the droplet with adequate accuracy, its accuracy in droplet size computation needs improvements. To this end, the correlation among adjacent images due to the droplet development is taken advantage of to improve the algorithm. Experimental results verified that the improved algorithm can automatically locate the droplets and compute the droplet size with an adequate accuracy.