Only continuous supervision of the manufacturing process can guarantee the high demands on the quality of the produced parts. In particular this is a fact in laser materials processing. It is for this reason, that process monitoring systems become more and more standard devices in modern automotive laser applications. The basis for reliable on-line process monitoring systems are significant indicators for the instantaneous condition of the interaction zone and/or neighbouring areas. Depending on the application it is essential to select the most reliable system configuration.
As presented in former ICALEO conferences, one of the most promising basis for reliable process monitoring systems is the use of a camera as sensor to extract as much information as possible from the interaction zone between the laser and the workpiece. Precitec Optronik GmbH (former JURCA Optoelektronik GmbH) is following this strategy since several years now and was very successful in integrating camera based monitoring system into the production line of the automotive industry.
This paper will describe the different system configurations for CO2 and Nd:YAG applications with regards to the sensor hardware and the image processing algorithms and will present examples from automotive industry.