Automated beam monitoring and diagnosis for CO2 lasers

Abstract

The application of a quality management, in combination with a standard certification, is nearly inevitable for today’s industrial manufacturing. In laser material processing, a periodical beam diagnosis is to be executed as a quality-maintaining measure with any change of the workpiece geometry to guarantee an unambiguous allocation of the beam quality factors. Otherwise changes in the beam quality, for example caused by pollution, aging or defects of the optical components remain undiscovered for a long time, leading to impairments of the treatment quality or even costly low-times.As a solution a diagnosis system is integrated into a laser system. Data sources like measuring instruments, sensors and laser control transmit the diagnosis data to a diagnosis-PC. A user-friendly software enables the operator to retrace changes in the beam quality up to failures of the laser system. All diagnosis data are archived in a databank. The access to the archived data through the World Wide Web allows remote diagnoses.With the help of the beam diagnosis system failures can be discovered in advance, and loss of productivity can be avoided. The gained transparency of the beam characteristic values makes it easier to integrate the laser system in a quality management system.The application of a quality management, in combination with a standard certification, is nearly inevitable for today’s industrial manufacturing. In laser material processing, a periodical beam diagnosis is to be executed as a quality-maintaining measure with any change of the workpiece geometry to guarantee an unambiguous allocation of the beam quality factors. Otherwise changes in the beam quality, for example caused by pollution, aging or defects of the optical components remain undiscovered for a long time, leading to impairments of the treatment quality or even costly low-times.As a solution a diagnosis system is integrated into a laser system. Data sources like measuring instruments, sensors and laser control transmit the diagnosis data to a diagnosis-PC. A user-friendly software enables the operator to retrace changes in the beam quality up to failures of the laser system. All diagnosis data are archived in a databank. The access to the archived data through the World Wide Web allows remote diagnos...