In an effort to compensate for the declining skill levels of shipyard welders, this program researches the feasibility of building an adaptive weld control system using a rule-based expert system and appropriate sensors. The shipyard welding process that can benefit most from such a control system will be identified. The key determinants of weld quality and the transfer functions that relate them will be established. A practical model of the weld process and expert system will be developed and will be used to project the quality, correctness and speed of response of a fully-developed control system.
