3d smart laser sensors

for accurate measurements and adaptive automation

Meta Vision Sensors

3d smart laser sensors

for accurate measurements and adaptive automation

SLS Arc30 3D smart laser sensors
01

Adaptive.

Sensor adaptively drives process changes based on real-world sensor measurements. For example, in adaptive welding, the Smart Sensor can change the robot position based on part position. And, change actual welding parameters based on changes in the weld joint.
02

Machine learning.

Intelligently and automatically adjust laser intensity, camera settings, and other sensor parameters to optimize functionality based on surface conditions and changes in material surface conditions.

03

Rugged.

Designed to thrive in hostile environments like welding. Can be air or water-cooled to keep sensor at optimal working temperature. Disposable plastic lens protects internal optics from possible damage caused by weld spatter.
04

Smart.

Full frame image processing and analysis built in to sensor head so there’s no need for an external processor. Single Ethernet cable connects the sensor to a robot controller, PLC, or other external processor, seamlessly adding and connecting the 3D Smart Laser Sensor to the family of Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
01

Adaptive.

Sensor adaptively drives process changes based on real-world sensor measurements. For example, in adaptive welding, the Smart Sensor can change the robot position based on part position. And, change actual welding parameters based on changes in the weld joint.
02

Machine learning.

Intelligently and automatically adjust laser intensity, camera settings, and other sensor parameters to optimize functionality based on surface conditions and changes in material surface conditions.

03

Rugged.

Designed to thrive in hostile environments like welding. Can be air or water-cooled to keep sensor at optimal working temperature. Disposable plastic lens protects internal optics from possible damage caused by weld spatter.
04

Smart.

Full frame image processing and analysis built in to sensor head so there’s no need for an external processor. Single Ethernet cable connects the sensor to a robot controller, PLC, or other external processor, seamlessly adding and connecting the 3D Smart Laser Sensor to the family of Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Build quality in.

Case study // A manufacturer of propane tanks reduced welding defects and made more money by building quality right into the tanks he was making.
Read more

Reduce scrap and rework.

Case study // A pipeline construction company saved considerable amounts of money thanks to a reduction in scrap and rework by inspecting welds and then correcting welding defects earlier in the complex process of laying down a pipeline.
Read more

Increase productivity.

Case study // A manufacturer of welded sub-assemblies for the automotive industry saved money and increased productivity by eliminating welding defects caused by welding robots being out of position at certain times.
Read more

Reduce cost.

Case study // A manufacturer of structural metallic assemblies for the automotive industry dramatically reduced costs by adding Smart Sensors to welding robots that helped to adaptively optimize welding parameters based on weld joint measurements.
Read more
SLS Arc30 laser sensor
SLS Arc30 laser sensor

Build quality in.

Case study // A manufacturer of propane tanks reduced welding defects and made more money by building quality right into the tanks he was making.
Read more

Reduce scrap and rework.

Case study // A pipeline construction company saved considerable amounts of money thanks to a reduction in scrap and rework by inspecting welds and then correcting welding defects earlier in the complex process of laying down a pipeline.
Read more

Increase productivity.

Case study // A manufacturer of welded sub-assemblies for the automotive industry saved money and increased productivity by eliminating welding defects caused by welding robots being out of position at certain times.
Read more

Reduce cost.

Case study // A manufacturer of structural metallic assemblies for the automotive industry dramatically reduced costs by adding Smart Sensors to welding robots that helped to adaptively optimize welding parameters based on weld joint measurements.
Read more
Heavy duty spatter shield on a laser sensor

Products & Services

Products
and Services

What you can get from Meta Vision Sensors

Welding Robot Guidance

add a meta sensor to your robot

A popular and very productive use of the Smart Sensor is to guide a welding robot. It can be difficult to be 100% sure that parts to be robotically welded will be in the same position that the robot is programmed to weld in.

Welding Robot Guidance

Add a Smart Meta Sensor to your Robot

A popular and very productive use of the Smart Sensor is to guide a welding robot. It can be difficult to be 100% sure that parts to be robotically welded will be in the same position that the robot is programmed to weld in. For example, variations in part forming or difficulties with tooling can mean the part is not always in a repeatable and correct spot for welding. Additionally, the welding process itself can cause heat-driven changes in the weld joint position and left unchecked, welding defects will occur.

Using a Smart Sensor can fix all of this, making sure welding is being done in the right place, all the time. The Smart Sensor will adaptively adjust the robot’s position to changes in seam position as well as to changes in the joint itself. This allows you to weld imperfect parts, perfectly.

The Smart Sensor is mounted a short distance ahead of the welding torch on the robot end effector. Before welding, the 3D profile sensor will search for the joint. Once the joint is found, the Smart Sensor quickly compares the actual position of the joint with a taught position. If there is a difference between the actual position of the joint and the position the robot was taught, that difference in position is used as an offset to start welding. This ensures that welding begins where the actual part is and not necessarily where the robot was taught the part would be.

As welding begins, the Smart Sensor provides welding seam guidance and constantly compares the actual position of the joint with the taught position. If there is a difference, the Smart Sensor sends corrections to the robot controller, allowing the robot and welding torch to adjust to changes to the joint’s position, in real time, as welding is taking place.

The Smart Sensor is also measuring weld joint characteristics of interest such as the joint gap, mismatch, and volume which can then be used to adaptively control the welding process based on actual process conditions. For example, a changing gap or hilo measurement can be used to adaptively control the travel speed, wire feed speed, or weave characteristics to more effectively fill the weld joint without over-welding.

An automatic laser intensity (AGC) control in the Smart Sensor ensures correct measurements and allows the sensor to quickly adapt to changes in material surface conditions. For example, problems robotically welding shiny aluminum fillet joints become a thing of the past now as the AGC minimizes reflections with minimal operator intervention.

Meta’s Smart Laser Pilot is a complete system that allows you to easily add a Smart Sensor to most of today’s modern welding robots using an Ethernet connection. The benefits to adding a Smart Laser Pilot to your welding robot include savings in tooling and fixturing, and reductions in welding defects, rework, and scrap. Robot teach time may also be reduced as the Smart Sensor can autonomously guide the robot along a complicated path without needing to add new teach points along the way. Please contact us today for more detailed technical information about a Smart Laser Pilot for your robot.

Learn more

Hard Automation​

ADD SMART SENSOR LASER SEAM TRACKING TO YOUR WELDING MACHINE

Meta Smart Sensors can easily be added to your mechanized welding equipment to realize improvements in quality, reduce defects, and increase productivity.

Hard Automation

add smart sensor laser seam tracking to your welding machine

Meta Smart Sensors can easily be added to your mechanized welding equipment to realize improvements in quality, reduce defects, and increase productivity. Successful applications include:

  • Automated seam and circumferential welding machines used to weld tanks and pressure vessels
  • Side beams and column and boom welding manipulators used to make wind towers and railroad cars
  • Specialized welding gantries used to weld tailor blanks, water walls, structural box beams, and truck trailers
  • Longitudinal and spiral pipe welding machines
  • Guidance of ultrasonic testing machines used on pipe mills

In these applications, variations in part fit up can make welding very challenging and labor intensive. Using the Smart Sensor for weld seam tracking ensures that the welding electrode stays in the joint at all times. The 3D machine vision sensor is attached a short distance ahead of the welding torch. The welding torch (and sensor) is then attached to a set of motorized slides. The Smart Sensor begins by searching for a joint feature that the sensor will use as a reference.

A joint feature might be an edge, the middle of the gap of a butt joint, or the intersection point where two plates meet for a fillet or T-joint. As the sensor moves over the joint, corrections are sent to the motorized slides as soon as the joint feature moves from its taught position. As the sensor is typically mounted a short distance ahead of the torch, a time delay is added to the corrections to make sure the welding torch stays in the corrected position for proper welding. If material surface conditions change while welding, automatic laser intensity (AGC) control quickly changes sensor settings to properly handle such challenges without operator intervention.

Adding a Smart Sensor to a welding manipulator, machine, or gantry will allow you to weld imperfect parts perfectly, faster, and help lower your costs by reducing scrap and rework. A laser seam tracking system will make your machine more productive and you make more money. In addition, certain real time measurements from the Smart Sensor can adaptively drive changes to the welding process. For example, a changing joint gap or volume measurement may then be used to drive changes to travel speed, wire feed speed or other process variables based on data coming from the Smart Sensor.

Meta can provide complete 3D machine vision systems for hard automation seam tracking applications including one or more laser vision sensors, touch screen operator display, operator pendant, and slides. If you are looking to replace an older laser tracking system or a tactile or touch probe tracking system because of problems using those systems, OSTrack is the perfect system for you. If your needs are more challenging requiring multiple sensors, multiple joint types, complex multi-pass applications, or fully integrated into your network along with multiple PC’s and PLC’s, Meta’s VisionWeld is the system you should consider. Please contact us for more detailed information on both of these system solutions.

Learn more

Inspection

INSPECT YOUR WELDS WITH A SMART META SENSOR

Meta’s Smart Sensor quickly generates profiles of the weld seam which may then be analyzed to identify trends, characteristics, and defects in the weld.

Inspection

Inspect your welds with a smart meta sensor

Once you’ve welded it, shouldn’t you make sure it’s made right? Are there any defects? Does it all fit together properly? These are all inspection tasks, perfectly suited for a Meta 3D Smart Sensor. Meta’s Smart Sensor quickly generates profiles of the weld seam which may then be analyzed to identify trends, characteristics, and defects in the weld. For example:

  • Position and length of each weld – is the weld in the right place
  • Presence of undercut and an indication if undercut has not exceeded a defined amount
  • Is there concavity, convexity, holes, or porosity
  • Measurement of weld face (bead width and height), leg lengths, throat thickness
  • Indication and location of any burn through, missing or skipped welds
  • Indication of multiple defects in single weld.

If you are interested in knowing you will have a good weld before actually welding, the Smart Sensor can be used to take certain key pre-weld measurements including:

  • Joint gap, mismatch or hilo, and part fit-up
  • Bevel angles, root face height, and material thickness

To perform an inspection, the Smart Sensor may be held by a robot, secured in place on a fixture, or mounted right behind the welding torch. If a complete inspection system is needed, Meta will build on its popular VisionWeld platform to configure a comprehensive solution for inline weld inspection as well as for off-line inspection. Systems can be set up to display and store actual measurements along with a “pass / fail” on select measurements and operator displays might include real time measurement values, strip charts of certain measurements, and alarms. Please contact us for more detailed technical information on VisionWeld for Inspection configurations.

Learn more

Measurement

ACHIEVE ACCURATE PRODUCT MEASUREMENTS BY ADDING A SMART META SENSOR TO YOUR APPLICATION

Meta Vision Sensors offers the perfect range of Smart Sensor capabilities that are easy to set up and quick to deploy for your measurement, inspection, or guidance project.

Measurement

Achieve accurate product measurements by adding a smart meta sensor to your application

Manufacturers, machine builders, and systems integrators use Meta Vision Sensors’ Smart Laser Sensor to improve product quality, reduce production costs, make precise measurements, and guide automation. Meta offers the perfect range of Smart Sensor capabilities that are easy to set up and quick to deploy for your measurement, inspection, or guidance project. SDK’s are available to help streamline implementation right into your application.

The Smart Laser Sensor family is distinctive in that high quality, full frame image processing is integrated within the sensor head itself. There are also several advancements that simplify setup and operation of the system and that greatly improve performance on shiny and other difficult surfaces. This includes an automatic laser intensity control function, exclusive to Meta, which solves laser reflection problems common in applications involving variable surface conditions.

For example, when welding two different materials together whose surfaces have been prepared differently or when fillet welding shiny aluminum components, the laser line from a conventional sensor may appear too bright in certain areas and dull in others. This may also cause the laser light to reflect brightly causing the vision analysis software to make poor and inaccurate measurements.

Automatic laser intensity (AGC) control in the Smart Sensor rapidly varies the intensity of the laser stripe and makes changes to the camera settings so that darker areas become brighter and brighter areas become darker. The result is an image of more uniform intensity along the entire length, contributing to more reliable and accurate measurements. This also simplifies the setup process as varying surface conditions no longer need to be considered while setting up a vision system for welding automation.

Smart Sensors are characterized by field of view (from 12mm to 100mm) and stand-off (from 45mm to 150mm) and choice of sensor is determined by what the sensor needs to see and the precision needed for measurements. Please contact us today for more complete technical information on the full range of Meta Smart Sensors.

Learn more

Welding Robot Guidance

add a meta sensor to your robot

A popular and very productive use of the Smart Sensor is to guide a welding robot. It can be difficult to be 100% sure that parts to be robotically welded will be in the same position that the robot is programmed to weld in.

Learn more

Hard Automation​

ADD SMART SENSOR LASER SEAM TRACKING TO YOUR WELDING MACHINE

Meta Smart Sensors can easily be added to your mechanized welding equipment to realize improvements in quality, reduce defects, and increase productivity.

Learn more

Inspection

INSPECT YOUR WELDS WITH A SMART META SENSOR

Meta’s Smart Sensor quickly generates profiles of the weld seam which may then be analyzed to identify trends, characteristics, and defects in the weld.

Learn more

Measurement

ACHIEVE ACCURATE PRODUCT MEASUREMENTS BY ADDING A SMART META SENSOR TO YOUR APPLICATION

Meta Vision Sensors offers the perfect range of Smart Sensor capabilities that are easy to set up and quick to deploy for your measurement, inspection, or guidance project.

Learn more
SLS Arc30 smart laser sensor

About us

Meta Vision Sensors founders leverage a great number of years of experience designing, manufacturing, and supporting high performance, 3D laser profile sensors and guidance systems in the welding community. Company staff has earned an enviable reputation delivering successful and reliable solutions that customers have counted on for more than 25 years. Today, the company embraces modern networking and up-to-date processing technology to deliver a range of networked 3D vision sensors and control systems that are perfectly matched to customer requirements. Meta Vision Sensors proudly builds lasting relationships with customers by carefully focusing on customer needs and delivering value that exceeds customer expectations.

Reliable, durable, long-lasting Smart Sensors

Experienced technical assistance

Flexible, customer-centered approach

Application, installation, training & professional services

You can also count on Meta Vision Sensors to provide a comprehensive list of professional services including application feasibility and assistance, installation and integration services, operations, maintenance, and systems management training, customer support, and product service. Wherever possible, our experienced Professional Services are available by phone, email, video conference, or in person. In many instances, a remote log-in capability is possible thereby allowing our experts to access your system safely from a distance for troubleshooting, debugging, and to add and configure new software updates.

Contact us

Need more information about our 3D Smart Laser Sensors? Don’t hesitate to contact us.

Meta Vision Sensors

Build quality in.

What does quality mean to you? Can having higher quality actually pay off? What if higher quality allows your product to perform better or look better than your competitor’s product? Can you charge more for a higher quality product?

Smoke and spatter while welding a shaft end

A manufacturer of pressurized propane storage tanks added Smart Sensors to their welding machines in order to reduce leaks on the weld seam. After tanks are welded together, each tank is hydrostatically tested for leaks. Prior to using smart laser seam tracking sensors, a number of tanks experienced leaks on the weld seam. On rare occasions, the weld seam would rip open under test causing the whole building to shake.

Laser sensor measuring weld bead width and height
Adding smart laser sensor seam tracking eliminated the defects caused by off-seam welding and saved the manufacturer money in several important areas. As a bonus, the sensors also helped to make a much nicer looking weld bead giving their tanks a higher quality appearance. The improvement in quality through the use of Smart Sensors means the product works better, looks better, has fewer (no) manufacturing defects, lowers warranty costs, and allows the manufacturer to offer a better warranty.
Close

Reduce scrap
and rework.

Reduce scrap and rework.

A pipeline construction company saved considerable amounts of money thanks to a reduction in scrap and rework by inspecting welds and then correcting welding defects earlier in the complex process of laying down a pipeline.
Selection of different size pipes and beveled ends
Proper bevel characteristics are key to achieving good quality welding and using a Smart Sensor to measure key bevel features before welding can help detect bevel issues before these can impact welding quality. To minimize bevel-related welding defects, a pipeline construction company uses the Smart Sensor to measure critical narrow-gap-joint bevel characteristics before welding allowing the pipeline company to correct any bevel issues immediately, before welding problems could occur, reducing rework and scrap.
Smart sensor measuring pipe end bearing face characteristics
Taking it a step further, the pipeline company was concerned that welding defects were only being identified at the end of the pipe joining process, once all welding stages and passes had been completed. They wanted to know precisely where in the multi stage process the defects were occurring and a detailed investigation revealed that a majority of those defects were occurring right at the beginning of the process at the root pass.
To help identify defects occurring at the root pass phase, the pipeline company developed a unique, internal weld inspection system using Meta’s 3D laser vision sensor that allowed root inspection directly after root and hot pass welding pass. At that point, defects could be quickly identified and fixed before any more welding passes were made, value added, and money spent. As such, significant savings were realized through reductions in rework and scrap by detecting and fixing defects far sooner than they had done previously.
Close

Increase productivity.

A manufacturer of welded sub-assemblies for the automotive industry saved money and increased productivity by eliminating welding defects caused by welding robots being out of position at certain times.
Robot welding a car body in white
A line of 8 welding robots were set up to stitch-weld assemblies of automobile components for this manufacturer of welded sub-assemblies. Two manual rework stations supported the 8 lines of welding robots and both rework station operators were kept busy at all times. After a detailed analysis, the manufacturer determined that a majority of their weld defects were caused because the welding robot was not always in the correct position for good-quality welds.
Meta Sensors SLS Arc30 sensor measuring the gap of partially filled butt joint
Smart laser sensor finding defects in a weld
Meta’s 3D robot vision systems were added to all 8 stitch-welding robots and the Smart Sensor’s job was to make sure the robot and welding torch were in the correct position at all times.
The Smart Sensor would begin by measuring the actual position of the weld joint in 3D space and compare that position with the position the robot was taught to start in. If there was any deviation, the sensor would offset the robot’s starting position to the actual position where the joint was located. As welding continued, the sensor would continue to send any corrections in joint position allowing the torch to stay in the correct position at all times. As a result of adding the Smart Sensors, robot welding defects decreased to zero and this allowed the manufacturer to eliminate the rework stations and reassign the operators and equipment to other areas where they would be more beneficial. These enhancements resulted in considerable cost savings and a significant improvement in productivity.
Close

Reduce cost.

A Tier 1 automotive solutions provider assembling and welding pickup chassis added 3D Smart Sensors to a large number of their welding robots. An objective in implementing the Smart Sensors was to make sure the welding torch was always in the correct position and to overcome variations in material fit up due to fixturing and differences in materials.
Robot welding a brace component to a car body
Prior to using the Smart Sensors, many of the assemblies being robotically welded required rework which cost time and money. After the Smart Sensors were installed, welding defects were dramatically decreased, lowering costs through a reduction in scrap and rework.
Laser sensor guiding the torch while MIG welding a pipe
The Smart Sensors also helped to contribute further cost savings in energy use, consumables, and tooling costs. Additionally, using the 3D Sensor’s real-time measurements of the weld joint, it became possible to adaptively optimise welding parameters based on changes in weld joint characteristics. For example, travel speed or wire feed speed could increase or decrease based on a change in joint gap. And knowing that welding was always going to be in right place at the right time also allowed the use of smaller diameter wire. Using smaller diameter welding wire provided a further cost savings and also contributed to making a lighter vehicle, itself an important benefit.
Close

Welding Robot Guidance

Add a Smart Meta Sensor to your Robot

A popular and very productive use of the Smart Sensor is to guide a welding robot. It can be difficult to be 100% sure that parts to be robotically welded will be in the same position that the robot is programmed to weld in. For example, variations in part forming or difficulties with tooling can mean the part is not always in a repeatable and correct spot for welding. Additionally, the welding process itself can cause heat-driven changes in the weld joint position and left unchecked, welding defects will occur.

Using a Smart Sensor can fix all of this, making sure welding is being done in the right place, all the time. The Smart Sensor will adaptively adjust the robot’s position to changes in seam position as well as to changes in the joint itself. This allows you to weld imperfect parts, perfectly.

The Smart Sensor is mounted a short distance ahead of the welding torch on the robot end effector. Before welding, the 3D profile sensor will search for the joint. Once the joint is found, the Smart Sensor quickly compares the actual position of the joint with a taught position. If there is a difference between the actual position of the joint and the position the robot was taught, that difference in position is used as an offset to start welding. This ensures that welding begins where the actual part is and not necessarily where the robot was taught the part would be.

As welding begins, the Smart Sensor provides welding seam guidance and constantly compares the actual position of the joint with the taught position. If there is a difference, the Smart Sensor sends corrections to the robot controller, allowing the robot and welding torch to adjust to changes to the joint’s position, in real time, as welding is taking place.

The Smart Sensor is also measuring weld joint characteristics of interest such as the joint gap, mismatch, and volume which can then be used to adaptively control the welding process based on actual process conditions. For example, a changing gap or hilo measurement can be used to adaptively control the travel speed, wire feed speed, or weave characteristics to more effectively fill the weld joint without over-welding.

An automatic laser intensity (AGC) control in the Smart Sensor ensures correct measurements and allows the sensor to quickly adapt to changes in material surface conditions. For example, problems robotically welding shiny aluminum fillet joints become a thing of the past now as the AGC minimizes reflections with minimal operator intervention.

Meta’s Smart Laser Pilot is a complete system that allows you to easily add a Smart Sensor to most of today’s modern welding robots using an Ethernet connection. The benefits to adding a Smart Laser Pilot to your welding robot include savings in tooling and fixturing, and reductions in welding defects, rework, and scrap. Robot teach time may also be reduced as the Smart Sensor can autonomously guide the robot along a complicated path without needing to add new teach points along the way. Please contact us today for more detailed technical information about a Smart Laser Pilot for your robot.

Hard Automation

add smart sensor laser seam tracking to your welding machine

Meta Smart Sensors can easily be added to your mechanized welding equipment to realize improvements in quality, reduce defects, and increase productivity. Successful applications include:

  • Automated seam and circumferential welding machines used to weld tanks and pressure vessels
  • Side beams and column and boom welding manipulators used to make wind towers and railroad cars
  • Specialized welding gantries used to weld tailor blanks, water walls, structural box beams, and truck trailers
  • Longitudinal and spiral pipe welding machines
  • Guidance of ultrasonic testing machines used on pipe mills

In these applications, variations in part fit up can make welding very challenging and labor intensive. Using the Smart Sensor for weld seam tracking ensures that the welding electrode stays in the joint at all times. The 3D machine vision sensor is attached a short distance ahead of the welding torch. The welding torch (and sensor) is then attached to a set of motorized slides. The Smart Sensor begins by searching for a joint feature that the sensor will use as a reference.

A joint feature might be an edge, the middle of the gap of a butt joint, or the intersection point where two plates meet for a fillet or T-joint. As the sensor moves over the joint, corrections are sent to the motorized slides as soon as the joint feature moves from its taught position. As the sensor is typically mounted a short distance ahead of the torch, a time delay is added to the corrections to make sure the welding torch stays in the corrected position for proper welding. If material surface conditions change while welding, automatic laser intensity (AGC) control quickly changes sensor settings to properly handle such challenges without operator intervention.

Adding a Smart Sensor to a welding manipulator, machine, or gantry will allow you to weld imperfect parts perfectly, faster, and help lower your costs by reducing scrap and rework. A laser seam tracking system will make your machine more productive and you make more money. In addition, certain real time measurements from the Smart Sensor can adaptively drive changes to the welding process. For example, a changing joint gap or volume measurement may then be used to drive changes to travel speed, wire feed speed or other process variables based on data coming from the Smart Sensor.

Meta can provide complete 3D machine vision systems for hard automation seam tracking applications including one or more laser vision sensors, touch screen operator display, operator pendant, and slides. If you are looking to replace an older laser tracking system or a tactile or touch probe tracking system because of problems using those systems, OSTrack is the perfect system for you. If your needs are more challenging requiring multiple sensors, multiple joint types, complex multi-pass applications, or fully integrated into your network along with multiple PC’s and PLC’s, Meta’s VisionWeld is the system you should consider. Please contact us for more detailed information on both of these system solutions.

Inspection

Inspect your welds with a smart meta sensor

Once you’ve welded it, shouldn’t you make sure it’s made right? Are there any defects? Does it all fit together properly? These are all inspection tasks, perfectly suited for a Meta 3D Smart Sensor. Meta’s Smart Sensor quickly generates profiles of the weld seam which may then be analyzed to identify trends, characteristics, and defects in the weld. For example:

  • Position and length of each weld – is the weld in the right place
  • Presence of undercut and an indication if undercut has not exceeded a defined amount
  • Is there concavity, convexity, holes, or porosity
  • Measurement of weld face (bead width and height), leg lengths, throat thickness
  • Indication and location of any burn through, missing or skipped welds
  • Indication of multiple defects in single weld.

If you are interested in knowing you will have a good weld before actually welding, the Smart Sensor can be used to take certain key pre-weld measurements including:

  • Joint gap, mismatch or hilo, and part fit-up
  • Bevel angles, root face height, and material thickness

To perform an inspection, the Smart Sensor may be held by a robot, secured in place on a fixture, or mounted right behind the welding torch. If a complete inspection system is needed, Meta will build on its popular VisionWeld platform to configure a comprehensive solution for inline weld inspection as well as for off-line inspection. Systems can be set up to display and store actual measurements along with a “pass / fail” on select measurements and operator displays might include real time measurement values, strip charts of certain measurements, and alarms. Please contact us for more detailed technical information on VisionWeld for Inspection configurations.

Measurement

Achieve accurate product measurements by adding a smart meta sensor to your application

Manufacturers, machine builders, and systems integrators use Meta Vision Sensors’ Smart Laser Sensor to improve product quality, reduce production costs, make precise measurements, and guide automation. Meta offers the perfect range of Smart Sensor capabilities that are easy to set up and quick to deploy for your measurement, inspection, or guidance project. SDK’s are available to help streamline implementation right into your application.

The Smart Laser Sensor family is distinctive in that high quality, full frame image processing is integrated within the sensor head itself. There are also several advancements that simplify setup and operation of the system and that greatly improve performance on shiny and other difficult surfaces. This includes an automatic laser intensity control function, exclusive to Meta, which solves laser reflection problems common in applications involving variable surface conditions.

For example, when welding two different materials together whose surfaces have been prepared differently or when fillet welding shiny aluminum components, the laser line from a conventional sensor may appear too bright in certain areas and dull in others. This may also cause the laser light to reflect brightly causing the vision analysis software to make poor and inaccurate measurements.

Automatic laser intensity (AGC) control in the Smart Sensor rapidly varies the intensity of the laser stripe and makes changes to the camera settings so that darker areas become brighter and brighter areas become darker. The result is an image of more uniform intensity along the entire length, contributing to more reliable and accurate measurements. This also simplifies the setup process as varying surface conditions no longer need to be considered while setting up a vision system for welding automation.

Smart Sensors are characterized by field of view (from 12mm to 100mm) and stand-off (from 45mm to 150mm) and choice of sensor is determined by what the sensor needs to see and the precision needed for measurements. Please contact us today for more complete technical information on the full range of Meta Smart Sensors.

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