Automated data acquisition technology development:Automated modeling and control development

This report documents the completion of, and improvements made to, the software developed for automated data acquisition and automated modeling and control development on the Texas Micro rackmounted PC's. This research was initiated because a need was identified by the Metal Processing Branch of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for a mobile data acquisition and data analysis system, customized for welding measurement and calibration. Several hardware configurations were evaluated and a PC based system was chosen. The Welding Measurement System (WMS), is a dedicated instrument strickly for use of data acquisition and data analysis. In addition to the data acquisition functions described in this thesis, WMS also supports many functions associated with process control. The hardware and software requirements for an automated acquisition system for welding process parameters, welding equipment checkout, and welding process modeling were determined in 1992. From these recommendations, NASA purchased the necessary hardware and software. The new welding acquisition system is designed to collect welding parameter data and perform analysis to determine the voltage versus current arc-length relationship for VPPA welding. Once the results of this analysis are obtained, they can then be used to develop a RAIL function to control welding startup and shutdown without torch crashing.