The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2018) 96:2495–2508

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-018-1685-7

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Modeling and real-time prediction for complex welding process based

on weld pool
Hang Dong1 · Ming Cong1 · Yuming Zhang2 · Yukang Liu2 · Heping Chen3

Received: 21 July 2017 / Accepted: 30 January 2018 / Published online: 23 February 2018
© Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
A major assumption in developing intelligent robot in industrial fields is that the intelligence has to be from senior human
workers. However, in many industrial applications, this assumption may not hold. For example, in welding process, a senior
welder can continually choose proper weld parameters and tune weld performance based on their observations of the liquid
weld pool. But a robot with better pool shape measurement system and quicker respond speed may outperform human
welders. In such cases, intelligent welding agents, if developed successfully, would greatly reduce welding cost by avoiding
much expensive human training efforts and improve the welding performance. In recent years, machine learning techniques
have emerged as a new learning framework to address such problem. The theory of machine learning provides a normative
account of how agents may predict their future action based on a model structure, in which the training and future data have
to be in the same feature space and have the same distribution. In this paper, Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) is proposed
to model real-time welding process. Gas tungsten arc welding experiments were performed and the experimental data are
utilized to validate the proposed method. We train the model using 1284 pairs of data in one experiment and test this model
on a challenging domain of 4 other experiments by 11,642 pairs of data, using the same algorithm, GPR architectures, and
hyperparameters. Bayesian Optimization Algorithm (BOA) surrogated with GPR is proposed to provide robust prediction
results. This paper opens a door for enabling robot with industrial skills, resulting in the first artificial welder that is capable
to respond real-time observations and provide robust predictions.

Keywords Automatic welding · Model and prediction · Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) · Bayesian Optimization
Algorithm (BOA)

1 Introduction

This work is supported by Dalian Science and Technology Project Manual welding is indispensable in industrial applications,
Foundation #2014A11GX028 to M. Cong. especially for those where the weld quality is critical.
In manual welding process, a senior welder can make
 Ming Cong
congm@dlut.edu.cn
appropriate adjustments based on their understanding of the
welding parameters (e.g., current, welding speed, arc length,
Yuming Zhang
yuming.zhang@uky.edu
and torch orientation), their observations on the liquid
weld pool surface, and their estimation of the relationship
Heping Chen
hc15@txstate.edu between pool surface and solid bead shape. Those real-
time adjustments often lead to desired weld bead geometry
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of in the presence of noise and uncertainties. However, such
Technology, Dalian, China technical skill typically requires a very long time to develop.
2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Shortage of skilled welders has therefore become a critical
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA issue the manufacturing industry is currently facing [1].
3 Ingram School of Engineering, Texas State University, On the other side, welding robots are widely used on
San Marcos, TX 78666, USA assembly lines, for robots are free from human physical
2496
limitations including absent minded, fatigue, and tenseness.
Hence, they can continuously provide trustworthy execution
and the complex welding process can be operated safely and
profitably. However, robots cannot make real-time adjust-
ment or build weld skills throughout years of professional
work like human beings. Besides, the operating parameters
are usually fine tuned by professional technicians, which
severely restricted the application of welding robots.
To solve such problems, robotic assistance scheme
has been proposed [2] which suppresses the impact of
hand tremor to ease human suffering and achieve optimal
performance. This research is meaningful to bring robot
into human training system to accelerate human training
process. On the other side, a more popular idea is to develop
automatic control algorithm based on real-time monitoring
for welding robots [3–5].
However, there also exist several challenges for this
method: (a) the relationship between the dynamic character-
istic performances of the pool shape and welding parameters
is unknown, (b) there always exist noise and uncertainties
in the physical system (e.g., complex thermal influence)
and monitoring system (e.g., instant measurement error),
(c) there could exist time delay in the process, and (d)
multiple dynamic characteristic performance requirements
need to be satisfied and well balanced. Besides, the welding
process also involves uncertainties including influences of
metallurgy, heat transfer, chemical reaction, arc physics, and
electromagnetism. In the presence of these challenges, vari-
ous methods have been established to model and control the
multi-input-multi-output (MIMO), nonlinear, time-varying,
and strong coupled welding process [6].
Despite such challenges, Li and Zhang proposed an
Interval Model Control (IMC) method [7], which has
simplified the welding system into multiple SISO yet
first-order subsystems to perform dynamic control. But
when more inputs and outputs are taken into account, the
system would be hard to recognize and algorithm could be
difficult to implement. Linear regression-surrogated neuro-
fuzzy laws [8, 9] were also adopted to solve the real-time
prediction and control problem. It is true that neuro-fuzzy
laws is effective on such nonlinear problems. But within
each fuzzy law, the performance of the model is severely
restricted by its linear prior, which fails to build a highly
precise model. To deal with the nonlinearity of the welding
process, Chen et al. use the powerful nonlinear modeling
method Neuron Networks (NN) in their experiments [10].
However, their best prediction result is 72.2%, which is
still not precise enough to achieve good weld. Also, Wang
et al. [11, 12] proposed a GBAMPSO-BPNN model to
solve the modeling problem. But in the their algorithms,
the maximum testing error is 5 to 10 times larger than the
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508
training error, which may lead to poor performance in a
testing weld based on a well-trained model.
Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) is a powerful non-
parametric tool that can handle the complex modeling
problem with noisy observations and system uncertainties
[13]. It has been widely used in modeling dynamic systems
[14], nonlinear systems [15], real-time robot control [16,
17], time series problems [18], etc. Our previous work [19]
constructed a model to establish a relationship between
welding parameters and welding performances using GPR.
Bayesian Optimization Algorithm (BOA) is an effective
method for global optimization on an expensive objective
function in a high-dimensional space [20]. It is particularly
useful when closed-form expressions for the objective
function or its derivatives do not exist [21]. BOA
typically assumes that the objective function is sampled
from Gaussian processes and proceeds by designing an
acquisition function to determine where to evaluate the
function next [22]. By repeating these steps, BOA has the
ability to achieve the global optimum value for a black-box
objective function [23]. The GPR-surrogated BOA has been
implemented in many applications such as robot assembly
parameter tuning [24, 25], machine learning and PID online
parameter tuning [26], and power amplifier designs [27] by
introducing an acquisition function to the GPR model.
In this paper, a robot learning method based on GPR is
applied to model the continuous welding process and BOA
is used to provide robust real-time parameter prediction.
Five experiments were made to verify the proposed solution
and in total, 12,926 pairs of data were collected. We train
the GPR model using 1284 pairs of data in one experiment
and test this model on 4 other experiments using the rest
of the data, using the same algorithm, GPR architectures.
Prediction algorithm is also tested. The rest of the paper
is organized as follows: in Section 2, the gas tungsten arc
welding (GTAW) process and experiment platform are
introduced. The modeling problem is formulated as well.
In Section 3, the offline GPR modeling algorithms, offline
model verification algorithm, and real-time prediction algo-
rithm are detailed. The GPR model, cross-validation tech-
nic, BOA, and prediction methods are discussed. To test the
proposed method, welding experiments with varying weld-
ing parameters are conducted and recorded in Section 4.
Several more experiments are also made to verify the obtained
GPR model and the results are analyzed. Robust prediction
experiments are made subsequently. Conclusions are finally
drawn in Section 5. The proposed methods regress the weld-
ing process into a probabilistic process in the presence of
noise observations. Compared to the existing methods, our
method has more precise estimations on the welding perfor-
mance and can provide more robust control parameters.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508
2 Related work
Figure 1 demonstrates an example of GTAW process, where
a constant-current welding power supply provides electrical
energy, producing a plasma arc between a non-consumable
tungsten electrode and a stainless steel plate. The surface
of the plate is melted by the arc and a liquid weld pool
is formed. The welding current, gas flow rate, torch speed,
and arc length are configurable for the process. Our idea is
to enable the robot to generate instant welding parameters
based on the measured instant characteristic performance
similar to a skilled welder. However, after solidification,
a continuous weld bead is formulated while the instant
characteristic performances disappear. Therefore, both real-
time algorithms and measurement methods have to be
developed to achieve intelligent welding robot.
In the welding process, two types of variants are mostly
concerned, i.e., characteristic performance (CP) (e.g., weld
bead width, length, convexity, weld pool area) and welding
parameters (WPs) (e.g., welding speed, current, voltage,
arc length). Since a human welder or a robot cannot focus
infinite number of WP or CP, we assume there totally
exist I CPs and J WPs to be focused. To enable the
(E ,t+1) J
outputs {CPj k }j =1 to gradually approach the desired
(E ,t)
characteristic performance (DCP), optimal {WPi k }Ii=1
has to be found, where CPj k
(E ,t+1) (E ,t)
and WPi k are j th CP
and ith WP in the kth experiment at instant t + 1 and t,
respectively.
However, before we solve the control problem, an underly-
(E ,t+1) J
ing task is to build a model for {CPj k }j =1 . If the model
(Ek ,t) I
is properly built, we can optimize {WPi }i=1 to achieve
DCP.
Fig. 1 A GTAW welding process
2497
Liu and Zhang [9] proposed to estimate the real-time
weld pool CP based on a general time series model. Such
model is better than other traditional methods to develop
robot skills. For a continuous nonlinear welding process, the
(E ,t+1) J
{CPj k }j =1 can be highly relied on its previous states
(E ,t) (E ,t)
{CPj k }Jj=1 and previous delayed {WPi k }Ii=1 in the
presence of noise {e(Ek ,t) }, as shown in Fig. 2, is described
using
(Ek ,t+1) (Ek ,t) I (E ,t)
CPj = f ({WPi }i=1 , CPj k ). (1)
(E ,t)
In Eq. 1, real-time signal {CPj k }Jj=1 is difficult to
acquire. To measure such real-time signals, 3D sensing
technique is adopted to reconstruct weld pool. The
experiment platform is shown in Fig. 3 [28]. In Fig. 3,
GTAW pipe [29] welding experiment system was utilized.
A 20-mW illumination laser with the wavelength of 685 nm
was employed to produce a 19-by-19 structured light pattern
(Model SNF-519X (0.77)-685-20) dot matrix upon the weld
pool surface. The dots which are projected inside the weld
pool can be reflected by the mirror-like pool surface. The
dot matrix thus contains the 3D geometrical information of
the liquid weld pool surface. An image plane is installed
about 100 mm above the torch. A camera is placed behind
the image plane directly focusing on it. An example of
inspected liquid weld pool and reconstructed 3D pool
surface is shown in Fig. 3.
Then, the dynamic characteristic performances were
obtained by applying image processing and reconstruction
algorithms [30]. Several instant characteristic performances
(the instant weld pool length, width, height, etc.) can be
obtained from the 3D reconstruction figure.
The welding torch is controlled by its controller to
move up and down to adjust the arc length. The imaging
plane, the laser structure light generator, and the camera
are fixed in space. Current and the welding speed can also
be controlled by managing the welding controller and pipe
speed. The material of the pipe is stainless steel 304. The
Fig. 2 Modeling welding process using GPR method
2498 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508

Fig. 3 Pipe GTAW platform and

monitoring system

outer diameter and the thickness of wall are 113.5 and Algorithm 1 Offline GPR modeling (part I)
2.03 mm, respectively. (E ,t) (E ,t)
Input: Original data {{WPi 1 }Ii=1 , {CPj 1 }Jj=1 }, t =
During the welding process, the pipe rotates. On the
1, 2, · · · , T . Gaussian model candidates {kH , kθ }.
other side, the position of the torch (except for the height to
Cross-validation fold {kcv }. Stop criteria parameters {γ ,
the pipe surface), the image plane, the laser structure light
τ , ϕ, ϑ, F ∗ }.
generator, and the camera are fixed. The welding speed is j j j j
Output: Efficient model GPR{kH , kθ  , XA , yA }Jj=1 for
then determined only by the pipe rotation speed while the
each CP.
arc length is determined only by the torch height, both of
1: Initialize {kH , kθ }, kcv , γ , τ , ϕ, ϑ, F ∗ .
which are controlled by a computer. The welding current is
2: for j = 1 → J do
also controlled by the computer through an analog output to
3: while γ τ −ϕ |F − F ∗ | > ϑ do
the current power supply.
4: Generate GPR modeling data set by Eq. 1.
5: Select a GPR candidate from {kH , kθ } randomly.
6: for k = 1 → kcv do
3 The proposed real-time modeling and
7: Organize TD:{XA , yA } and VD:{XB , yB }
prediction
8: Optimize kθ by Eq. 8 to acquire kθ  .
9: Obtain performance indice Fk by Eqs. 8–12.
3.1 The whole method
10: end for
11: Average Fk to acquire F .
The framework of the proposed real-time control method
12: if F > F ∗ then
is shown in Fig. 4. For a welding process with monitor
(E ,t) 13: Save optimal TD:{XkA , ykA }
feedback, {CPj g }Jj=1 can be measured online. On the 14: ∗ , k ∗ , X∗ , y∗ } ← {k , k  , Xk , yk }
{kH
(E ,t) θ A A H θ A A
other side, {WPi g }Ii=1 can be read by the welding 15: τ ← τ + 1, F ∗ ← F ,
controller. Hence, if a GPR model is properly built and a 16: end if
control method is developed, the optimal {WPi ∗ }Ii=1 can be 17: end while
obtained. The offline modeling procedure is illustrated in 18:
j j j j
{kH , kθ  , XA , yA } ← {kH ∗ , k ∗ , X∗ , y∗ }
θ A A
Algorithm 1. 19: j ← j + 1.
20: end for

The proposed robot skill should enable a robot to operate

well in any experiment using limited training data. If a
GPR model is well trained using data in {E1 , E2 , ..., Eg },
the model should be able to make precise predictions in
Fig. 4 Framework of online optimal welding parameter tuning method {Eg+1 , Eg+2 , ..., }. To verify the GPR models for each CP
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508 2499

obtained in Algorithm 1, we propose an offline GPR model 3.2 Gaussian process regression
verification procedure. We train the GPR models by E1
and verify the modeling results by {E2 , ..., Eg }G
g=2 . The The modeling problem is to find an appropriate function
(E ,t)
verification procedure is shown in Algorithm 2. f (XA ) = yA in Eq. 1, where XA = ({WPi 1 }Ii=1 ,
(E ,t)
CPj 1 ) ∈ Rn is a finite n-dimensional input vector and
(E ,t+1)
Algorithm 2 Offline GPR model verification (Part II) yA = CP j 1 ∈ R1 is the corresponding scalar training
output.
j j j j
Input: GPR{kH , kθ  , XA , yA }Jj=1 model for each CP. A Gaussian process is a collection of random variables,
(E ,t) (E ,t) any finite number of which can have a joint Gaussian
Experiment data {{WPi g }Ii=1 , {CPj g }Jj=1 }G g=2 ,
t = 1, 2, · · · , TEg . distribution [23]. Hence, there exists a latent function f (x)
Output: Modeling errors for verification experiments. over x, which follows a joint Gaussian distribution. As a
21: for j = 1 → J do consequence, f (x) can be completelyspecified by its mean
22: for g = 1 → G do function μ(x) and variance function (x).
23: Organize verification data:{XEg , yEg } by Eq. 1. However, it is usually intractable to find f or the
24:
j j j j
Obtain results by GPR{kH , kθ  , XA , yA , XEg }. operating space of f . Hence, a covariance function or kernel
25: Calculate modeling errors. k(·, ·) is defined, which enables to operate in an implicit
26: end for feature space without ever computing the coordinates of the
27: end for data in that operating space, but rather by simply computing
the inner products between all pairs of data in the feature
space.
Since there exist J CPs to regulate and one GPR model As the observed data are from a realistic welding process,
can only describe one CP, we can build J GPR models. we do not have access to the real function values themselves,
Therefore, a control method of the I input WPs has to be but only noisy versions thereof yi = f (x) + ε. A further
determined to balance these J performances. Besides, since prior assumption is that this noise follows an independent,
the output of a GPR model is given by the form of mean and identically distributed Gaussian distribution with zero mean,
covariance pair, an acquisition function should be given to i.e., ε ∼ N(0, σ 2 ).
acquire more robust predictions from the results. To unify Therefore, the joint distribution of the training outputs yA
the J CPs and obtain such predictions, we propose a real- and the test outputs y∗ under the prior as
time CP prediction algorithm. The prediction procedure is     
yA K(XA , XA ) + σ 2 I K(XA , x∗ )
presented in Algorithm 3. ∼ N 0, (2)
y∗ K(x∗ , XA ) K(x∗ , x∗ )

Since there are a training points, and 1 test point, K(XA , x∗ )

Algorithm 3 Real-time CP prediction denotes the a × 1 matrix of the covariances evaluated at all
j j j j pairs of training and test points, and similarly for the other
Input: GPR{kH , kθ  , XA , yA }Jj=1 models for each CP. Con-
entries K(XA , XA ), K(x∗ , XA ) and K(x∗ , x∗ ).
trol target {DCPj ∗ }Jj=1 . WP ranges {(WPi l , WPi u )}Ii=1
Deriving the conditional distribution, we can obtained the
and quality {WPi q }Ii=1 . Starting point {CPtj }Jj=1 . following [23]:
Output: Optimal WP pairs {WPi ∗ }Ii=1 . 
1: Initialize control candidate sequence length SL (y∗ x∗ , yA , XA ) ∼ N (μ∗ , σ∗ ) (3)
I WPi u −WPi l
by i=1 ( WPi q ), prediction data sequence by
where
{{{WPi }i=1 , CPj }sl=1 }j =1
sl I t SL J

−1
2: for j = 1 → J do μ∗ = K(x∗ , XA ) K(XA , XA ) + σ 2 I yA
3: for sl = 1 → SL do
4: Organize input: XB = {{WPi sl }Ii=1 , CPtj }. σ∗ = (K(x∗ , x∗ ) + σ 2 I)

−1
j j j j
5: Predict μ∗ , σ∗ by GPR{kH , kθ  , XA , yA , XB }. −K(x∗ , XA ) K(XA , XA ) + σ 2 I K(XA , x∗ )
6: Obtain predicted CPt+1
j by Eqs. 14 or 15.
7: end for Among various forms of covariance functions, a com-
8: end for monly used one is the rational quadratic kRQ (x, x ), which
Calculate unified index sequence {P (Xsl SL is parameterized as
9: B )}sl=1 by
Eq. 17.  
x − x 2
10: Return {WPi ∗ }Ii=1 by Eq. 18. 
kRQ (x, x ) = (1 +
2
)−α (4)
2ας 2
2500 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508

where α and are characteristic length-scale factors Table 1 Commonly used covariance functions
controlling how close x and x are and α and ς 2 are the
Name Covariance function
amplitude of the variance.
We use H to denote the hypothesis on the structure of Constant kC (x, x ) = C
the covariance function kH . For each kH , there are some Linear kL (x, x ) = xT l −1 x
corresponding hyperparameters kθ , such as α, k, and σ Guassian noise kGN (x, x ) = 2 κ (x,x )
kSE (x, x ) = 2 exp(− |d|
2
for kRQ . Both H and kθ will largely affect the prediction Squared exponential )
2l 2
accuracy. To give the best prediction of output y∗ over Rational quadratic kRQ (x, x ) = 2 (1 + |l|2
)−α
2ας 2
input  x∗ and kH , kθ has to be optimized by maximizing
p(kθ yA , XA , kH ), where
 Here, d = x - x is a distance vector, l is a characteristic
p(yA |XA , kH , kθ )p(kθ )
p(kθ yA ,XA , kH ) = (5) length scale of the function (i.e., how far away two points
p(yA |XA , kH ) x and x have to be for it to change significantly), κ is the
In the absence of a strong prior p(kθ ), the posterior for kθ is Kronecker delta of a matrix, and ς 2 is the amplitude of the
proportional to the marginal likelihood, i.e., kernel.
 Since the sum or product of two covariance functions
p(kθ yA , XA , kH ) ∝ p(yA |XA , kH , kθ ) (6) can maintain the positive semidefinite property, these two
operations can be utilized to generate new covariance
Besides, the Gaussian assumption makes it possible to
functions. That is, for two covariance functions k1 (x, x )
derive the analytical solution of the log marginal likelihood:
and k2 (x, x ), ksum (x, x ) = k1 (x, x ) + k2 (x, x ) and
 
1   kproduct (x, x ) = k1 (x, x )k2 (x, x ) also belong to covariance
log p(yA |XA , kH , kθ ) = − log K(XA , XA ) + σ 2 I
2 function family.
1 Hence, with these two operations, complex covariance
− yA T (K(XA , XA ) + σ 2 I)yA
2 functions, which are suitable to solve the proposed arc
A welding problem, can be constructed by combining the
− log 2π (7)
2 commonly used ones listed in Table 1.
To guarantee a larger posterior possibility p(kθ |yA , XA , kH )
for kθ , it is reasonable to maximize the marginal likelihood 3.4 Cross-validation and evaluation criterion
p(yA |XA , kH , kθ ). As a result, the optimized kθ can be
determined by Cross-validation (CV) is a powerful technique to properly
evaluate model prediction [31]. In this paper, a k-fold cross-
kθ = arg max log p(yA |XA , kH , kθ ) (8) validation method [32] is used to evaluate the modeling
θ
performance and prevent the overfitting problem. The
This optimization problem can be solved using different advantage of this method over repeated random sub-
techniques, such as Nelder-Mead method, evolutionary sampling is that all observations are used for both training
algorithms, or gradient algorithms. In this paper, Polack- and validation, and each observation is used for validation
Ribiere flavor of conjugate gradients is used to compute exactly once.
search directions, and a line search using quadratic and We randomly partition the modeling data into kcv
cubic polynomial approximations and the Wolfe-Powell equal-sized subsamples. Of the kcv subsamples, a single
stopping criteria are used together with the slope ratio subsample is retained as the validation data VD:{XB , yB }
method for guessing initial step sizes. This algorithm can for testing the model , and the remaining (kcv − 1)
return a (local) minimum θ in Eq. 8. subsamples are used as training data TD:{XA , yA }, where
Once kθ is obtained, prediction upon testing data can be XA and XB are input vectors and yA and yB are the
made subsequently. For a b points testing data set {XEg }bi=1 , corresponding output vectors.
b iterations of the proposed estimation method are made To evaluate the modeling performance of a GPR model,
to acquire the corresponding b pairs of predicted mean and the following performance indices are utilized:
variance values by GPR{kH , kθ  , XA , yA , XEg } in Eq. 3. 1) Mean Marginal Log Likelihood (MMLL). The
hyperparameters θ in a covariance function can be
3.3 Exploring Covariance Function optimized by maximizing the marginal log likelihood in
Eq. 8 where Gaussian assumption makes it possible to
Covariance function is crucial in GPR modeling, as derive the analytical solution of the log marginal likelihood
described in Eq. 3. Some commonly used covariance in Eq. 7. This item denotes the sum log marginal likelihood
functions are listed in Table 1. of each point in the training data. Hence, the MMLL
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508 2501

performance index can be formulated by normalizing Eq. 7 3.5 Acquisition function and performance indices
as
EMMLL =mean(log p(kH , kθ  , XA , yA )) In real-time prediction process, Bayesian Optimization
 (9) Algorithm (BOA) is utilized to obtain optimal WP
= log p(kH , kθ  , XA , yA )/a candidates, where an acquisition function is defined by
where a is the number of training data. the predicted mean function μj (x) and variance function
2) Mean Predictive Likelihood (MPL). If a GPR model is σj (x) from Eq. 3 to acquire a new candidate using different
trained using training data, its probability density function techniques such as Probability of Improvement, Expected
can be described afterwards. Hence, the log predictive Improvement, Entropy search, and Lower Confidence
likelihood for one pair of testing performance (x∗ , μ∗ , σ∗ ) Bound (LCB) and Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) [33].
can be derived as In welding process, some CPs have a positive correlation
1 (y∗ − μ∗ ) with the bead quality (e.g., pool length), i.e., positive CP,
log p( y∗ | x∗ , μ∗ , σ∗ ) = − log(2π σ∗2 ) − (10) while the others have negative relationship with it (e.g.,
2 2σ 2
Therefore, the MPL performance index can be obtained by pool width), i.e., negative CP. Since we desire more robust
averaging  the log predictive likelihood of all testing data: predictions on the bead quality, UCB and LCB are utilized
EMP L = log p( y∗ | x∗ , μ∗ , σ∗ )/B. based on the idea of exploiting upper or lower confidence
3) Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). As a frequently bounds to acquire the system performance for negative CP
used measure of the differences between values predicted and positive CP, respectively.
by a model and the values actually observed, the RMSE can Hence, the acquisition function for the j th CP can be
 defined as
be calculated by ERMSE = RMSE(y∗ − μ∗ )/B

 
To unify the obtained kcv errors, we average the kcv errors Pj −LCB (x) = μ∗ − κj · σ∗  (14)
on each test examples:
or
1 
kcv
= ESm
 
ES
kcv
(11) Pj −UCB (x) = μ∗ + κj · σ∗  (15)
m=1
where S denotes Mean Marginal Log Likelihood, Mean where κj is a scaling factor for the j th CP.
Predictive Likelihood, and Root Mean Square Error, Hence, the outputs from the j th GPR model can be
respectively. obtained and utilized to predict more robust CP. However,
Hence, the performance indices of different covariance as there exist J GPR models, a unified index of the
functions can be unified and evaluated by the following input should be defined to determine the optimal input
function: {WPi ∗ }Ii=1 . To unify the outputs from the J GPR models by
EMMLL EMPL E∗ Eqs. 14 and 15 {Pj (x)}Jj=1 , a multi-objective problem can
F = w1 ∗ + w2 ∗ + w3 RMSE (12) be formulated:
E MMLL E MPL ERMSE

J
where w = (w1 , w2 , w3 )T is the weight vector, and
E ∗ MMLL , E ∗ MPL , and E ∗ RMSE are the current optimal
values of the corresponding performance indices.
We randomly select one of the proposed covariance
functions, randomly generate initial θ within empirical
ranges, and calculate the corresponding F . If F is greater
than a preset threshold F ∗ , let the current model be the
optimal model. The iteration stops when the following
criterion is satisfied:
 
γ τ −ϕ F − F ∗  < ϑ (13)
where γ smaller than 1 is a preset discount value, τ is the
number of times the optimal candidate has changed, and ϕ
is a preset positive iterative threshold to prevent premature
convergence while ϑ is a preset convergence threshold.
If Eq. 13 is satisfied, we assume an appropriate
covariance function and the corresponding hyperparameters
are found. From Eq. 3, the mean and variance function of
the welding process can be predicted.
P (x) = F ( Pj (x) j =1 ) (16)
where P (x) is a unified performance index of {Pj (x)}Jj=1 .
Different methods can be applied to solve the multi-
objective problem, such as weighted-sum model, no-
preference articulation, nonlinear approach, analytic hierar-
chy process, and STEM method. Here, we normalize the
objectives into a uniform scale and apply no-preference
articulation method:
⎡  m ⎤ m1
J
Pj (x) − DCPj ∗
P (x) = ⎣ ⎦ (17)
DCP∗j
j =1
where m is a real number indicates m-norms with common
choices including 1, 2, and ∞DCPj ∗ is the j th desired
performance. Therefore, after applying the no-preference
articulation approach, the multi-objective problem can be
transferred into a single-objective optimization problem to
optimize WP online. Suppose the minimization problem is
2502 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508

Fig. 5 Weld pool characteristic

performances: width, length,
and convexity

formulated on some domain x ⊆ χ , the optimal candidate
can be chosen by Eq. 18.
x∗ = arg min P (x) (18)
x∗ ∈χ
Since the optimal control signals WP pairs {WPi ∗ }Ii=1 are
obtained, the real-time prediction process can be perform by
repeating Algorithm 3 until welding process is done. Note
that in an experiment, we may desire different {DCPj ∗ }Jj=1 .
4 Experiments and results
The liquid weld pool contains abundant information of the
welding process. In the paper, the pool length, width, and
convexity are chosen as the CPs as these three parameters
are the most obvious CPs that can be observed by welders,
and can largely affect the strength of the weld bead.
The CPs are shown in Fig. 5. On the other side, among
the input parameters, the welding current and speed can
significantly affect the heat input into the welding area,
thus considerably influencing the geometry formation of the
weld pool surface. Besides, these two parameters are easy
to measure and modulate. Therefore, the welding current
and speed are chosen as the variants. Other experimental
parameters and imaging parameters are specified and listed
in Table 2.
Table 2 Experimental and imaging parameters
Hence, the controlled GTAW process can be considered
as a three-input-two-output system. The input parameters
are welding current c and speed s while the outputs
are the pool length L, width W , and convexity C. So
(E ,t) (E ,t)
that {WPi 1 }2i=1 = {ctE1 , stE1 }Tt=1 and {CPj 1 }3j =1 =
{L(E1 ,t) , W (E1 ,t) , C (E1 ,t) }Tt=1 .
4.1 Offline GPR modeling
Experiments were conducted to obtain desired data. Since
the surface CPs disappear after solidification, the back-side
weld bead is pictured and shown in Fig. 6.
On the other side, Fig. 7 includes the distribution
of welding parameters in the dynamic experiment. The
welding parameters are specified to occupy certain ranges
so that the model can be used in control process as long as
the parameters are in the approximate range.
In Experiment 1, ten consecutive states of the surface are
presented from eye view and global view in Fig. 8. Here,
the pictures from eye view show how a welder can feel and
sense the weld poor, while the pictures from global view
show the views from the image plane in Fig. 3. Then, the
pictures from global view are processed by the regression
method in [34] to obtain CPs. During the consecutive
process, the shape of the weld poor is varying and the
consecutive CPs are sensed and recorded. In Experiment 1,
in total, 1285 consecutive pool shapes were monitored and
ranges of the recorded CPs are shown in Table 3.
Then, we utilize a 10-fold CV, thus setting kcv to 10.
The date are divided into 10 sets and each set contains

Experimental parameters V

Arc length (mm/s) 5

Argon flow rate (L/mm) 11.8
Laser projection angle (degree) 35.5
Laser to weld pool distance (mm) 24.7
Imaging plane to weld pool distance (mm) 101
Frame rate (fps) 30
Camera to imaging plane distance (mm) 57.8
Fig. 6 Back-side weld bead from the experiment
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508
Fig. 7 Distribution of welding parameters in Experiment 1
approximately 128 samples. Hence, for each modeling pro-
cess, the training data contains approximately 1156 samples
while the testing data contains approximately 128 samples.
Fig. 8 Weld pool surface
scratched from eye view and
global view
2503
In the GPR modeling process, the prior form of covariance
function is required. In this paper, different combinations
of the commonly used covariance function are utilized to
model the welding process, including Linear function (LF),
Squared Exponential functions (SE), Rational Quadratic
function (RQ), Gaussian White Noise function (GN), and
Constant function (CF), which are listed as follows: SE +
GN; RQ + GN; CF + RQ + GN; CF + SE + GN; LF + SE +
GN; and SE × RQ + GN.
Subsequently, a random candidate from the aforemen-
tioned covariance functions is selected and a pair of cor-
responding initial hyperparameters are generated within an
empirical range of [0.05, 20]. The performance indices
EMMLL , EMPL , and ERMSE and the unified index F in
Eq. 12 are calculated, respectively. Here, weights are
selected with equal importance, i.e., w = (1, 1, 1)T . The
criteria parameters in Eq. 13 are selected as F ∗ = 3, γ =
0.8, ϕ = 25, and ϑ = 0.05. Hence, the algorithm stops
when 0.8(τ −25) |F − 3| < 0.05 in Eq. 13.
The most suitable covariance function RQ + GN for
length was obtained after 185 iterations when τ reached 6,
2504 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508

Table 3 Imported original data

Parameters Welding parameter Characteristic performance

Current (A) Speed (mm/s) Length (mm) Width (mm) Convexity (mm)

Minimum 53.5156 0.6600 3.3567 3.9470 0.0972

Maximum 70.3125 1.4259 5.5773 5.9013 0.2336

6 0.25
5.5

Convexity
5 0.2
Length

4.5
4 0.15
Predicted Predicted
3.5 Original
Original
3 0.1
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Sample number Sample number

Predicted Convexity errors

5.5 0.3 0.02
Predicted Length errors

Predicted
5 0.2 0.21 Original 0.01
Convexity

0.1
Length

4.5 0.18
0 0
4
−0.1 0.15
Predicted −0.01
3.5 −0.2
Original
3 −0.3 0.12 −0.02
180 210 240 270 300 330 180 210 240 270 300 330 180 210 240 270 300 330 180 210 240 270 300 330
Sample number Sample number
Sample number Sample number
Fig. 11 Predicted convexity vs. experimental measurement
Fig. 9 Predicted length vs. experimental measurement

6
10
5.5
5
Width

4.5
6
4
Predicted
3.5
Predicted errors (%)

Original
3 2
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Sample number

6
Predicted Width errors

0.3 −2
5.5 0.2
0.1
Width

5 0 −6
−0.1 Length
4.5 Predicted Width
Original −0.2
Convexity
4 −0.3 −10
180 210 240 270 300 330 180 210 240 270 300 330 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Sample number Sample number Sample number

Fig. 10 Predicted width vs. experimental measurement Fig. 12 Predicted length, width and convexity residuals
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508 2505

Table 4 Model validation experiments data

Exp. 2 Exp. 3 Exp. 4 Exp. 5 All measurements

Current (A) 53.5156∼69.9219 53.125∼69.7266 53.5156∼69.7266 52.9297∼69.9219 52.9297∼69.9219

Speed (mm/s) 0.6545∼1.437 0.9486∼1.5868 0.943∼1.6645 1.2205∼1.7478 0.6545∼1.7478
Length (mm) 3.2392∼6.1826 1.8192∼5.3919 2.2343∼4.6051 3.1816∼5.3713 1.8192∼6.1826
Width (mm) 2.9803∼5.8281 1.6732∼4.8086 2.2419∼4.5437 2.5496∼4.6699 1.6732∼5.8281
Convexity (mm) 0.1233∼0.2345 0.1205∼0.2261 0.1054∼0.2323 0.1459∼0.2411 0.1054∼0.2411
Total sample 4335 1800 2752 2755 11,642

CF + RQ + GN for width was obtained after 238 iterations
when τ reached 5, and SE + GN for convexity was picked
out after 295 iterations when τ reached 5. For the weld bead
length, the predicted performance indices are EMMLL =
0.8876, EMPL = 1.3286, and ERMSE = 0.0882. For the
weld bead width, the predicted performance indices are
EMMLL = 0.8235, EMPL = 1.5672, and ERMSE = 0.1104.
For the weld bead convexity, the predicted performance
indices are EMMLL = 3.4077, EMPL = 1.5040, and
ERMSE = 0.0059. Note that the performance indices are
largely affected by the specific observation noise levels
and their own scale levels, so that they can only be used
to evaluate the modeling performance between different
covariance functions from one type of CP. For different
types of CP, the noise levels or their scale levels are probably
different. Therefore, their prediction likelihood as well as
their performance indices can be incomparable between
them. The predicted length, width, and convexity vs. the
experimental measurement are shown in Figs. 9, 10, and 11,
respectively.
The prediction errors of the testing data are shown in
Fig. 12. The maximum and minimum absolute prediction
error rates for length are 4.841 and 0.2181%, respectively.
The maximum and minimum absolute prediction error
rates for width are 3.993 and 0.2777%, respectively. The
maximum and minimum absolute prediction error rates for
convexity are 7.724 and 0.7492%, respectively. The results
indicate the proposed method can accurately predict the
weld bead length, width, and convexity compared to 72.2%
in [10].
4.2 Model validation
To validate the obtained GPR models, four groups of
experiments were implemented. In these experiments,
we have also specified the experimental parameters and
imaging parameters in Table 2. The sample number of each
experiment TE2 ∼E5  [4356, 1801, 2753, 2756]. Table 4
shows the ranges of these inputs and outputs. We organize
the origin data into 4355, 1800, 2752, and 2755 pairs of
modeling data and put them in the obtained GPR models
in Algorithm 1. The absolute modeling errors ErrE k
CP are
Ek Ek Ek
defined by |CPt − yt |, where yt are the predicted CP in
kth Experiment at instant t by Eqs. 14 or 15.

Fig. 13 SER from Exp.

2∼Exp. 5
2506 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508

Fig. 14 Error rate for each CP

from Exp. 2∼Exp. 5

Then, we divide ErrE k E1

CP by CPmax to give a modeling error real-time CP prediction algorithm should be able to bring
index to validate the GPR modeling performance. Figure 13 {CPj }Jj=1 to {DCPj ∗ }Jj=1 .
E
shows the error rate ErrCPk /CPE 1
max vs. sample numbers in To validate the real-time prediction methods, a two-stage
j experiment is implemented. We select a starting point for
each experiment. Each bar SERkii represents the samples
between error rates (SER) of ii and ii + 1 for the j th CP in control, where Lt = 3.9230, Wt = 3.7917, and Ct =
the kth experiment. 0.1756, as shown in Fig. 14. In the first stage, we set
From Fig. 13, it can be seen that the proposed method {DCPj ∗ }Jj=1 = {3.8, 4.5, 0.18}. If CP reach {DCPj ∗ } and
can accurately model the data in Exp. 2∼Exp. 5. The
majority of SER are within 5% error rates; only a small
portion of the modeling performance is above 7%. To better 4.2
Length

represent the modeling ability of the proposed method, we 4

inspect the error rate for each CP from Exp. 2∼Exp. 5 by 3.8 Without control
Predict process
k
j 
k 3.6
SERkii / N Ek . The results are shown in Fig. 14. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Sample number
From Fig. 13, it can be seen that more than 95 percent of 4.5
Without control
the samples for length and width among all experiments are 4.25
Width

Predict process
4
within 5% of modeling error rates; more than 90 percent of
3.75
the samples for convexity are within 5% of modeling error 3.5
rates. The results show that these four experiments are with 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Sample number
low modeling errors, which has validated the effectiveness
Convexity

0.2
of the GPR models.
0.18
Without control
0.16
4.3 Real-time prediction Predict process
0.14
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
j j j j
In previous section, GPR{kH , kθ  , XA , yA }Jj=1
models are Sample number

properly defined. Based on the proposed methods, the Fig. 15 Real-time prediction process
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2018) 96:2495–2508
70
Optimal current
65
60
55
50
0 20 40 60 80 100
Sample number
1.6
1.4
Optimal speed
1.2
1 The proposed approach can also be used to model other
0.8
0.6
0 20 40 60 80 100
Sample number
Fig. 16 Optimal WP in the predicting process
converge, we reset {DCPj ∗ }Jj=1 = {4.2, 3.5, 0.2} to start
the second stage. If CP can converge in both stages, the
proposed prediction algorithm is verified. Based on the
training distributions in Experiment 1, we initialize current
and speed candidates c ∈ [54, 69] and s ∈ [0.7, 1.5] with
the signal quality of 1 and 0.1, respectively. Hence, the
sequence length is 144 by step 1 in Algorithm 3.
To guarantee a robust performance, we acquire the width
and convexity performance indices by Eq. 14 and length
performance indices by Eq. 15, in which κ1 = κ2 =
κ3 = 0.2. Then, the unified evaluation index in Eq. 17 was
obtained by setting m = 2 and the optimal WP pairs (c , s  )
are returned by Eq. 18.
The online prediction results and optimal WP pairs are
shown in Figs. 15 and 16, respectively. The largest real-time
prediction errors rate are 5.96, 1.56, and 2.68% for length,
width, and convexity, respectively.
Many other real-time prediction experiments with
different starting points and different {DCPj ∗ } were also
performed. The experiment results demonstrate that the
proposed method can be used to perform the real-time
prediction such that the desired CP can be achieved.
5 Conclusion
In this work, we propose a modeling and prediction
method based on GPRBOA which can successfully learn
CP prediction policies in a range of different GTAW
experiments with only very little prior knowledge, receiving
only the {DCPj ∗ }Jj=1 starting point status {CPtj }Jj=1
and using the same algorithm, GPR architectures, and
hyperparameters. Three performance indices are employed
2507
to evaluate modeling performance. Robust predictions
were obtained using Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) and
Lower Confidence Bound (LCB) acquisition functions.
A unified performance index based on no-preference
articulation method is formulated to balance different
modeling performance indices. Compared to the existing
methods, our method can model the welding process in the
presence of big uncertainties and noise. Experiments of a
gas tungsten arc welding process were performed and the
experimental data sets were obtained. The modeling results
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
complex processes to optimize the process parameters and
improve the system performance, such as robotic grinding
and assembly. Hence, the proposed modeling method opens
a door to optimize complex manufacturing processes, which
will significantly improve the manufacturing efficiency and
reduce its cost.
Acknowledgment The first author would like to thank Chinese
Scholarship Council to provide the financial support for his one-year
(2015–2016) exchange Ph.D. studentship at Taxes State University
(TSU).
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