See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229358555

Fuzzy regression method for prediction and

control the bead width in the robotic arc-
welding process

Article in Journal of Materials Processing Technology May 2005

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2005.02.174

CITATIONS READS

35 87

9 authors, including:

I.s. Kim Hong Joo Kim

Mokpo National University Samsung
154 PUBLICATIONS 1,186 CITATIONS 1,810 PUBLICATIONS 24,720 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Bong Yong Kang

Korea Institute of Industrial Technology
29 PUBLICATIONS 121 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Double wall TNTs View project

Physics and application of perovskite stannates and related transparent semiconductors View project

All content following this page was uploaded by I.s. Kim on 20 February 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document
and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
 Journal of Materials Processing Technology 164165 (2005) 11341139

Fuzzy regression method for prediction and control the bead

width in the robotic arc-welding process
Yu Xue a , I.S. Kim a, , J.S. Son a , C.E. Park a , H.H. Kim a ,
B.S. Sung a , I.J. Kim a , H.J. Kim b , B.Y. Kang b
a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mokpo National University, Chonnam 534-729, South Korea
b Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Chungnam 330-820, South Korea

Abstract

In the manufacturing industry, quality is of prime importance and a reduction in rejects rates is desirable to reduce costs, improve productivity
as well as satisfy customer quality requirements. Many quality problems arise due to poorly set process variables, and this is often due to lack
of welding skill on the part of the mechanised or robotic system suppliers. However, the automated welding system has not been achieved
much because of difficulties of the mathematical model and sensor technologies. In this paper, the possibilities of the fuzzy regression method
in modeling the bead width in the robotic arc-welding process are presented. Fuzzy regression is a well-known method to deal with the
problems with a high degree of fuzziness so that the approach is employed to build the relationship between four process variables and the
quality characteristic, such as bead width. Using the developed model, the proper prediction of the process variables for obtaining the optimal
bead width can be determined.
2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fuzzy linear regression method; Bead width; Robotic GMA welding; Artificial intelligence (AI) technology; Taguchi method

1. Introduction transfer relationships, but these are regarded as being only

Recently, the demand to increase productivity and quality,
the shortage of skilled labour and strict health and safety
requirements led to the development of the robotic welding
process to deal with many of the present problems of the
welded fabrication. A truly robotic welding system should
have three principal components: sensors, which detect the
condition of the welding process; a process model, which
provides the relationship between the welding variables and
the bead geometry; a control system, which evaluates the
sensor data and changes the welding process variables using
the relationship in the process model.
In the past decades, several effective and reliable welding
processes have been developed into mechanized welding ma-
chines, which included the power sources, wire feeders and
welding control units. Many analytical approaches for devel-
opment of processing model have been developed from heat
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 61 450 2416; fax: +82 61 452 6376.
E-mail address: ilsookim@mokpo.ac.kr (I.S. Kim).
reasonably accurate. Most practical models are also devel-
oped statically or experimentally and attempted to decouple
the welding variables. However, decoupling of welding vari-
ables is extremely difficult, because each variable has at least
some effects on the others.
Robotic welders have replaced human welders in many
welding applications, and reasonable seam tracking sys-
tems have been commercially available, but fully adequate
process-control system has not been developed due to a lack
of reliable sensors and mathematical models that correlate
welding parameters to the residual stresses for the robotic
welding process. Cook [1] has also attempted to derive simple
dynamic models in their attempt to control residual stresses,
heat-affected zone (HAZ) and rate of cooling at the centre-
line of the weld. Mathematical based control systems are
not suited to truly real-time adaptive control due to their
inability to isolate the welding parameters, thereby result-
ing in excessive processing times. These systems are not
capable of taking account of heuristics and the relative ef-
fect of each input parameter. Mathematical systems are also

0924-0136/$ see front matter 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2005.02.174
 Y. Xue et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 164165 (2005) 11341139 1135

inflexible to changes in hardware due to their rigid control Table 1

laws and consequently unable to learn from successes and Mechanical properties of base metal
errors. However, it can only consider fuzzy logic or expert Material SS400
systems that are capable of a learning function. Kuhne et al. Tensile strength(kg/mm2 ) 43.5
[2] have developed an expert system for the GMA welding Yield point (kg/mm2 ) 32.5
process for welding low-carbon steels, which predicts weld Elongation (%) 25
Impact value (kg/cm2 ) 6.2
design with the ability to provide recommendations for ob-
served discontinuities and process improvement. The system
can download information directly to the robotic welder, but 2. Welding equipment and procedure
rely on the operator to supply information regarding weld
quality. The arc-welding process, a very complex process which
Fuzzy set theory, in which vague conceptual phenomena involves many scientific and engineering disciplines, has
can be precisely and rigorously studied, can be considered as been employed to join any metal using many joint config-
a modeling theory well suited for situations in which fuzzy urations and in all welding positions [10].
relations, criteria and phenomena exist [3]. Born in 1964 by In this study, the experimental materials were
Zadeh in USA, the idea of fuzzy sets and the applications of 200 mm 70 mm 12 mm steel SS400 plates. The
considering fuzzy data to the regression models have been mechanical properties and chemical comosition of base
proposed in the literature [4]. Tanaka et al. [5,6] initiated and metal are shown in Tables 1 and 2. The chosen process
generalized their approaches to the more general models. In variables were wire diameter, arc voltage, welding speed and
addition, they considered the LR fuzzy data and minimized welding current with two levels so that, L16 orthogonal array
the index of fuzziness of the fuzzy linear regression model. was employed. Their values can be seen in Table 3. The
Redden and Woodall [7] compared various fuzzy regression interaction effect between the process variables is neglected.
modes and investigated the difference between fuzzy regres- The welding facility at the Welding and Intelligent Control
sion and usual regression analysis. Peters [8] introduced a Lab in Mokpo National University was chosen as the basis
new fuzzy linear regression model based on Tanakas ap- of the data collection and evaluation. In the process of the
proach for consideration of the fuzzy linear problem. Di- experiments, the Daewoo ABB1500 robot manipulator was
amond [9] defined a distance on a triangular fuzzy number used to control the welding, and a GMA welding unit was
space in order to measure the best fit for the regression model also employed in the experiment work. With the welder and
to observed data and developed regression variables based argon shield gas turned on, the robot was initialised, and
on the distance. However, there were few researches for the welding was then executed.
fuzzy linear regression approach in order to apply for arc- To measure the bead width, the bead section was cut trans-
welding process on nowadays. versely from the middle position using a wire-cutting ma-
With the trend towards welding automation and robo- chine.
tization, mathematical models for studying the influence In order to assure the precision of the specimen dimension,
of various variables on the bead geometry in robotic arc- it was etched by 3% HNO3 and 97% H2 O nital solution. To
welding process are required. At present, it is possible to evaluate the quality of GAM welding, the measurements of
predict the variable changes to the operator who must stop
the robot and manually input new settings. A robotic con-
Table 2
troller with the ability to change real-time process param- Chemical composition of base metal
eters is, however, necessary to intelligently control robotic
Material SS400
welding. To make effective use of automated and robotic
C 0.15
arc welding, it is imperative that mathematical models are
Mn 0.697
developed, which can be programmed easily and fed to the P 0.013
robot controller having a high degree of confidence in predict- S 0.007
ing the bead geometry to accomplish the desired mechanical Cu 0.041
properties of the weldment. They should also cover a wide Cr 0.087
Ni 0.503
range of material thicknesses and be applied for all position
Fe Bal.
welding.
In this study, the fuzzy linear regression technology is de-
veloped to study relationship between four process variables Table 3
Factors and their levels for experiment
(wire diameter, arc voltage, welding speed and welding cur-
rent) and bead width as the quality of the robotic arc-welding Sample Process variables Level 1 Level 2
process. The developed model can fit variables to a linear A Wire diameter (mm) 1.2 1.6
function which a process of determining coefficients of the B Arc voltage (V) 20 30
C Welding speed (cm/min) 25 41
fitting function to study the quality of the welding and deter- D Welding current (A) 180 360
mine process variables for obtaining the optimal bead width.
1136 Y. Xue et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 164165 (2005) 11341139

tion, Taguchi introduces the signal-to-noise (SN) ratios for

measuring the quality through orthogonal array based exper-
iments, the most economical experimental design in terms
of high accuracy and fast convergence speed at the smallest
development cost can be accomplished. A class of statistics
called SN ratios has been defined to measure the effect of
noise factors on performance characteristics. SN ratios take
into account both the variability in the response data and the
closeness of the average response to target value.
In the parameter-design phase of this method, process vari-
Fig. 1. A schematic diagram for bead width for the study. ables can be grouped into controllable and noise factors. The
design and indicative factors belong to the class of control-
the bead width were performed. The schematic diagram of lable variables that can be controlled both in the simulation
bead width was shown in Fig. 1. experiment and in the real world. The Taguchi method uses
the SN ratio instead of the average value to convert the trail
result data into a value for the evaluation characteristic into
3. Experimental results and discussion optimum setting analysis. The quality characteristic, such as
bead width is lower-the-better ones that the loss function can
In this study, 16 experiments were employed. The ex- be expressed as:
perimetnal layout for the four process variables using the L16
orthogonal array is shown in Table 4, where each row corre- ij = 10 log yij2 (1)
sponds to one experimental run. Each process parameter is where ij is the SN ratio of the ith quality characteristic in
assigned to a column, 16 process parameters combinations the jth experiment, and yij is the experimental value of the ith
being available. And the experimental results for bead width quality characteristic in the jth experiment.
are shown in Table 5. Using formulation (1), we can get the quality characteris-
tics corresponding to bead width. The results of the SN ratio
3.1. Analysis of the SN ratio for the bead width are shown in Fig. 2.
Because the experimental design is orthogonal, the effect
The Taguchi method provides a mathematical tool called of each process variables on the SN ratio at different levels
the orthogonal arrays, which allows the analysis of the re- can be separated out and presented in Table 6. In addition,
lationships between a large numbers of design parameters the mean of the SN ratio at different level of the process
using only a limited number of experimental runs [1113]. variables and the total mean of the SN ratio for the 16 exper-
A key concept to the Taguchi method to quality is to quan- iments are also shown in Table 6. According to the Taguchi
tify losses, which occur because of poor quality, using loss method, the larger is the SN ratio, the better is the multiple
functions as quadratic in nature, with losses increasing in quality characteristics for the bead width. The average SN ra-
proportion to the square of the deviation of the performance tios of various process variables affecting the bead width and
from the target. In order to measure the quadratic loss func- their levels were determined as listed in Table 6. As shown
in Fig. 2, we can see that the SN ratio of experiment 3 was
Table 4
Experimental layout using L16 orthogonal array
Table 5
Number of the trial Process variable level Experimental results for the bead width
A B C D Number of the trial Bead width (mm)
1 1 1 1 1 1 13.71
2 1 1 1 2 2 8.08
3 1 1 2 1 3 10.30
4 1 1 2 2 4 13.04
5 1 2 1 1 5 14.20
6 1 2 1 2 6 15.36
7 1 2 2 1 7 10.91
8 1 2 2 2 8 14.10
9 2 1 1 1 9 11.94
10 2 1 1 2 10 14.26
11 2 1 2 1 11 8.94
12 2 1 2 2 12 12.35
13 2 2 1 1 13 16.20
14 2 2 1 2 14 20.06
15 2 2 2 1 15 12.55
16 2 2 2 2 16 16.83
 Y. Xue et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 164165 (2005) 11341139 1137

Fig. 3. A triangular fuzzy regression coefficient.

Fig. 2. SN ratio for the bead width.

Then, the fuzzy linear regression model can be rewritten

the largest one and experiment 3 has the best multiple per- as follows:
formance characteristics among the 16 experiments. And the y = (0 , c0 ) + (1 , c1 )x1 + (2 , c2 )x2 + + (k , ck )xk
process variables of experiment 3 are the same as the conclu-
sions we get above. Through the analysis of the SN ratio, we (3)
can get the conferrence for the choice of process variables.
The following linear programming (LP) formulation was
employed to estimate Aj = (j , cj ):
3.2. Theory of fuzzy linear regression
k
 n




Regression, a method for fitting variables to a function, is minimize J = cj xij (4)
j=0 i=1
the determination of coefficients of the fitting function. Fuzzy
regression is similarly developed for fitting fuzzy variables k

k


into a fuzzy or real function, because engineers usually use subject to j xij + (1 h) cj xij yi (5)
fuzzy linguistic sentences to describe engineering phenom- j=0 j=0
ena [14]. Fuzzy linear regression otherwise provides a means
k

k


for tackling regression problems lacking a significant amount
of data for determinant regression models and with vague re- j xij (1 h) cj xij yi (6)
j=0 j=0
lationships between the dependent variable and independent
variable.
Fuzzy linear regression by Tanaka [5] to determine a aj R, cj 0, j = 0, 1, 2, . . . , k,
fuzzy linear relationship was originally proposed. xi0 = 1, i = 1, 2, . . . , n, 0h1

y = A0 x0 + A1 x1 + A2 x2 + + Aj xj + + Ak xk (2) where J is the total fuzziness of the fuzzy regression model.

The h-value is between 0 and 1, which is a threshold level to
where y is the fuzzy output, x = [x1 , x2 , . . ., xk ]T is the be chosen by the decision maker. This term is referred to as
real-valued input vector of independent variables and each a degree of fitness of the fuzzy linear model to its data. And
regression coefficient Aj , j = 0, . . ., k, was assumed to J is minimized subject to:
be a symmetric triangular fuzzy number with center j  
y T x
and half-width cj , Cj 0. Fig. 3 shows a triangular fuzzy 1 h (7)
regression coefficient Aj . cT |x|
where |x|=[|x1 |, |x2 |,. . .,|xk |]T , the central value of y is T x,
Table 6 and spread of y is cT |x|. The fuzzy regression by solving the
SN response table for the bead width above LP problem is illustrated in Fig. 4.
Process variables SN ratio
3.3. Development of fuzzy regression models
Level 1 Level 2
Wire diameter (mm) 171.36 182.60 As the 16 experiment works have been carried out, the data
Arc voltage (V) 166.71 187.25
set x = [x1 , x2 , . . ., x16 ]T . There is a characteristics describing
Welding speed (cm/min) 184.46 169.25
Welding current 168.77 185.19 the bead width. Regression coefficient Aj (j , cj ) comprises
four components. Here, h was chosen to be 0.1, which means
Total mean value of the SN ratio 176.98
the degree of fitness of the fuzzy linear model to the data is
1138 Y. Xue et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 164165 (2005) 11341139

Table 8
Process variables of additional experiments
Number Process variable
of the trail
Wire diameter Arc voltage Welding speed Welding
(mm) (V) (cm/min) current (A)
1 1.2 20 25 180
2 1.6 30 25 360
3 1.6 20 41 180

Table 9
Experimental results of additional experiments
Number of the trial Welding quality bead width (mm)
1 10.28
Fig. 4. A fuzzy linear relationship. 2 16.41
3 9.80
Table 7
The center and width values of fuzzy variables for bead width
Table 10
Fuzzy variables Center Bead width Results of additional experiments for bead width
A0 6.082 0.000 No. Fuzzy regression Actual value (mm) Error (%)
A1 0.168 0.758
A2 0.016 0.164 Spread Center
A3 0.021 0.029 1 4.915 10.255 10.28 0.240
A4 0.029 0.000 2 6.858 15.248 16.41 7.619
3 5.682 9.852 9.89 0.384
0.1. Then, the fuzzy linear regression model for dependent Average error (%) = 2.748.
variable y can be represented as follows:
n = 16; experiment conditions. That means that a better choice for the
k = 4; three process variables are 1.6, 30 and 41. On the other hand,
h = 0.1; the better choice for the welding current may be 180. These
  conclusions are similar to what we get from the analysis of
4 
16
SN ratio.
minimize J = cj xij
j=0 i=1 In order to verify the developed models, additional ex-

4 
4 periments were performed. The values of the four process
subject to j xij + (1 h) cj xij yi (8) variables chosen for the additional experimental runs and the
j=0 j=0 experimental results were shown in Tables 8 and 9. Other ex-

4 
4 periment conditions were the same as the original experiment
j xij (1 h) cj xij yi
j=0 j=0
conditions. Table 10 shows the comparisons of the actual and
predicted values obtained by the LP model.
aj R, cj 0, j = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, Fig. 5 shows the comparisons of the actual and predicted
values obtained by the LP model for bead width. From Fig. 5,
xi0 = 1, i = 1, 2, . . . , 16, h = 0.1 the predicted values of center for bead width were approxi-
mate to the actual values. The average error of the prediction
The above LP model was solving using MATLAB, and
the central value and bead width of each fuzzy variable were
obtained as shown in Table 7. Therefore, the fuzzy linear
regression model for the dependent variable yw (bead width)
is shown below:
yw = (6.082, 0.000) + (0.168, 0.758)x1
+ (0.016, 0.164)x2 + (0.021, 0.029)x3
+ (0.029, 0.000)x4 (9)

According to Table 7, the center coefficients of wire di-

ameter, arc voltage and welding speed were negative. With
the considerations of the effects on the bead width, the above
three process variables seem to be better than ones within the Fig. 5. Results of additional experiments for bead width.
 Y. Xue et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 164165 (2005) 11341139
for the center of bead width is very little (2.748%). But the
bead width predicted by the model is a little big. It was con-
cluded that the precision of the developed model in the robotic
arc-welding process is not very good.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, the fuzzy linear regression approach, is
employed here to study the relationship between four pro-
cess variables (wire diameter, arc voltage, welding speed and
welding current) and the bead width and verify the quality
of the robotic arc welding based on the analysis of the bead
width.
By using Taguch method and a weighting method, we
can integrate the four loss functions corresponding the four
quality characteristics into an overall loss function. Thus,
in this way, the optimization of the multiple performance
characteristics can be greatly simplified. Then, we can get
a good prediction for the optimized bead width. Through
those models the prediction of the quality characteristics can
be obtained with the error less than 5%. It is shown that
the algorithm produces good estimates for bead width in the
robotic arc-welding process. This study has illustrated the
theory and procedures for application of fuzzy regression
analysis, which may be ueful in the prediction and evaluation
of robotic arc-welding process.
Consequently, fuzzy regression can be applied to any
model that uses conventional non-fuzzy linear regression by
View publication stats
1139
fuzzifying the linear regression model using a fuzzy kinear
function together within the fuzzy variables of the thriangular
membership functions.
References
[1] G.E. Cook, Feedback and adaptive control in automated arc welding
system, Metal. Construct. 9 (1990) 551556.
[2] A.H. Kuhne, H.B. Cary, F.B. Prinz, Weld. J. 66 (1987) 2125.
[3] H.J. Zimmermann, Fuzzy Set Theory and Its Application, Kluwer
Academic Publishers, London, 1996.
[4] J. Yen, R. Langari, Fuzzy Logic Intelligence, Control and Informa-
tion, Prentice-Hall Inc., New Jersey 07458, 1999.
[5] H. Tanaka, S. Uejima, K. Asai, Linear regression analysis with fuzzy
model, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man. Cyber. 12 (1982) 903907.
[6] H. Tanaka, I. Hayashi, J. Watada, Possibilistic linear regression anal-
ysis for fuzzy data, Eur. J. Operat. Res. 40 (1989) 389396.
[7] D.T. Redden, W.H. Woodall, Properties of certain fuzzy linear re-
gression methods, Fuzzy Sets Systems 64 (1994) 361375.
[8] G. Peters, Fuzzy linear regression with fuzzy intervals, Fuzzy Sets
Systems 63 (1994) 4555.
[9] P. Diamond, Fuzzy least squares, Inf. Sci. 46 (1988) 141157.
[10] L.P. Connor, Welding Handbook: Welding Processes, American
Welding Society, Florida, 1991.
[11] P.J. Ross, Taguchi Techniques for Quality Engineering, McGraw-
Hill, New York, 1988.
[12] G.S. Peace, Taguchi methods, in: A Hand-on Approach, Addison-
Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993.
[13] A. Bendell, J. Disney, W.A. Pridmore, Taguchi methods, in: Appli-
cations in World Industry, IFS Publications, UK, 1989.
[14] H. Tanaka, H. Ischibuch, Fuzzy Regression Analysis, Physica-Verlag,
Heidelberg, 1992.