About the Project

The COMBILASER project presents a great advance with respect to the current state of the art since it is the first time that all issues linked defects avoidance in welding or cladding process applied to parts will be approached from an integral or holistic point of view.

Actually, the proposed combination of:

• innovative monitoring techniques and their fusion with non contact NDT techniques (laser ultrasonic and active thermography) and
• active control techniques with the self-learning module can be considered as a pioneering and ground breaking approach.

The added value

... will consist on the seamless set up and industrial integration of laser melting and processing manufacturing by the application of a »ICT expert« - The Self-Learning module, which will entail to minimize human expert intervention and reduce process optimization loop for any new application. The always changing market rules and increased production flexibility demands are behind these needs as industrial drivers.

The most relevant research concept is the implementation of the Self-Learning module. This approach has been possible until recently due to the advances in automatic control, computational intelligence, data mining and criterion optimisation for decision making fields.

In short the general idea that lies behind the expected COMBILASER outcomes is the utilisation of an integral solution to fabricate metallic customized parts for their real application in the defined project use cases in transport (automotive, aeronautical/aerospace, railway, shipbuilding), oil gas or capital good industries. The objective is to optimized current cases and additionally seek for other applications.

The main outcome is oriented to commercially incorporate self-learning systems (able to coordinate and synchronize process monitoring and NTD techniques) in laser beam welding or cladding equipment/systems. But apart from the integral solution, the different sensing elements (both non-contact NDT and monitoring system) will represent an advance in their respective fields at the end of the project, concerning the readiness level while applied to the process considered in the project.