Welding joint detection by calibrated mosaicking with laser scanner systems

Nowadays laser scanners are increasingly being used in laser welding. Because of deviations between the theoretical welding path and the actual contours of the workpiece, the welding result often does not meet the quality requirements. This problem can be solved using industrial imaging. Metrical information about the workpiece can be obtained from a camera attached to the laser scanner, which uses the same optical path as the laser beam. For this the entire camera application must be calibrated. The necessary calibration routines are described in this paper and validated by means of a practical example.