Intelligent Automated Welding for Shipyard Applications.

摘要

Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) integrated with Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) will form the basis of engineering/planning systems of the future. These systems will have the capability to operate in a paperless environment and provide highly optimized process operation plans. The WELDEXCELL System is a prototype of such a system for welding in shipyards. The paper discusses three significant computer technology advances which have been incorporated into the WELDEXCELL prototype. First is a computerized system for allowing multiple knowledge sources (expert systems, humans, data systems, etc.) to work together to solve a common problem (the weld plan). This system is called a 'blackboard'. The second is a methodology for the blackboard to communicate to the human user. This interface includes full interactive graphics fully integrated to CAD as well as data searches and automatic completion of routine engineering tasks. The third is artificial neural networks (ANS's), which are based on biological neural networks (e.g. the human brain), that can do neural reasoning tasks about difficult problems. ANS's offer the opportunity to model highly complex multi- variable and non-linear processes (e.g. welding) and provide a means for an engineer to quantitatively assess the process and its operation.