Controlling the thermally induced focal shift in laser processing heads

摘要

A system being able to in situ measure and control not simply the distance between the workpiece and the focusing optics, but the true focal position on the workpiece including the thermally induced focal shift in a laser processing head is presented. In order to achieve this, a bundle of astigmatic measurement beams is used following the same optical path as the welding beam. A camera and a software algorithm allow to keep the focal position constant within a range of 4 mm and with a resolution between 150 μm and 500 μm.