KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEM FOR CONTINUOUS SEAM WELDING IN THE AUTONOMOUS MANUFACTURING ENVIRONMENT.

This paper presents the concept and prototype development of a knowledge-based system (KBS) for continuous seam welding processes within an autonomous manufacturing environment. For a given job the KBS is designed to determine appropriate weld parameters, plan the feasible table orientations and robot trajectories, and coordinate the robot and positioning table movements independently. The KBS will be capable of accommodating multiple configurations of different types of welding positioning tables and robots within a flexible manufacturing cell. The KBS software is written in the C language and has been tested for real-time operations within a simulated welding cell environment.