Flexible laser system technology for welding applications

Economic and ecologic trends led to significant changes in the construction of assemblies. There was an increasing interest in production-ready design, manufacturing in light-weight design while combining different materials and avoiding rework. The complexity of assemblies increasing, more single pieces had to be joined with a higher number of weld seams. To respond to rising demands of precision, welding the whole assembly in one single clamping became necessary. As weld seams are scattered all-over the construction, designing the clamping system to make all welding positions accessible is a challenge to the engineers. Ten years ago, simple robot cells (ERLASER (R) WELD ROBOT) using common welding optics were sufficient. Only through further development of system technology the permanently increasing quantities and demands for quality could be mastered. Primary processing times were significantly reduced when the laser scanner was introduced into welding applications, because of the fast positioning times of the laser beam. Various systems of the ERLASER (R) WELD SCAN were built. ERLAS is now presenting a future-oriented, modular system technology - ERLASER (R) UNIVERSAL - using a newly-developed scanner which is fully integrated into one system control, being flexible concerning production of different work pieces as well as using different technologies.