System and method providing distributed welding architecture

• US 6,624,388 B1
• Filed: 01/25/2001
• Issued: 09/23/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 01/25/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Lincoln Electric Company (Lincoln Electric Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Lincoln Electric Company (Lincoln Electric Holdings Incorporated)
• Inventors: Hsu, Christopher, Blankenship, George Daryl, Hillen, Edward Dennis
• Primary Examiner(s): Shaw, Clifford C.
• Application Number:
  US09/770,064
• Time in Patent Office: 971 Days
• Field of Search: 219/130.5, 219/110, 219/125.1, 219/130.01, 700/100, 700/145, 709/219
• US Class Current: 219/130.5
• CPC Class Codes: B23K 11/252 using digital means
• CPC Class Codes: B23K 9/1062 with computing means
• CPC Class Codes: B23K 9/1087 Arc welding using remote control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

A system and method provides a distributed welding architecture in accordance with the present invention. The system includes a welder operatively coupled to a server and a network interface to enable a network architecture, the network architecture serving a network that communicates with at least one remote system. The remote system includes at least one remote interface to communicate with the network architecture, wherein the remote system accesses at least one HTTP socket to establish web communications with the welder and loads at least one application from the welder. The remote system accesses at least one Welding Application socket via the at least one application to exchange information between the welder and the remote system, wherein the at least one application includes at least one of a weld configuration component, a weld monitoring component, and a weld control component to interact with the distributed welding system.

Claims

1. A distributed welding system, comprising:

a welder operatively coupled to a network interface;

at least one HTTP socket employed for web communications via the network interface, the HTTP socket employed to load at least one application from the welder; and

at least one Welding Application socket to exchange information between the welder and the at least one application, the at least one application includes at least one of a weld configuration component, a weld monitoring component, and a weld control component to interact with the distributed welding system.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is at least one of a web server and an HTTP server, and the remote interface is a web browser.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is at least one of a Java applet or a Java application.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the Welding Application socket includes at least one of an HTTP socket, an FTP socket, an SMTP socket, an RPC socket, an RMI socket, a JDBC socket, an ODBC socket, an SSL socket, an NFS socket, a Winsock, a POP3 socket and a TELNET socket.

5. The system of claim 4, farther comprising a client to proxy requests over the Welding Application socket to or from the welder'"'"'s native system.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising at least one control processor, a native welding Local Area Network (LAN) coupling the at least one control processor, and one or more logical processes or objects executing on the at least one control processor.

7. The system of claim 6, further comprising a database to provide access to methods or properties exhibited by each object.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the application requests at least one web page from the welder via the at least one HTTP socket.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one web page is dynamically generated by the welder containing live welder operating parameters.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one web page is parsed by the application to extract welder operating parameters, the welder operating parameters to be at least one of displayed graphically within the remote interface, processed by an algorithm, and recorded into a log file.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein at least one URL of the at least one web page includes at least one of commands, parameter settings changes, instructions or functions to be executed by the welder, when the at least one web page is requested by the remote system.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the web page includes at least one of HTML, SHMIM, VB Script, JAVA, CGI Script, JAVA Script, dynamic HTML, ASP, XML, PDF, and WML format.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the web page is utilized as a point of entry from other web server subsystems, wherein web content or data can be collected from the welder and the web server subsystems to present a unified view and control of the collective system.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein an applet is utilized to acquire data from the collective system to present the data within a browser.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the applet and the web page reside on the same web server.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the applet and the web page reside on different web servers.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the Welding Application socket encapsulates a welder'"'"'s native addressing and command arguments, wherein routing and request arguments are served by a welder'"'"'s native network and operating system.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the network interface employs at least one of Ethernet, Wireless Ethernet, PPP (point-to-point protocol), point-to-multipoint short-range RE (Radio Frequency), WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), Bluetooth, IP, IPv6, TCP;

and User Datagram Protocol (UDP).

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the welder interfaces to at least one of another networked welder, a network of welders, a remote computer, an industrial controller, a robot, and a network device via a local network or the Internet.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the network interface interfaces to at least one socket to provide communications to a network.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the at least one socket is associated with a TCP/IP stack for communicating to the network.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the TCP/IP stack is associated with at least one of a physical layer, a data-link layer, a session layer, a presentation layer, and an application layer.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the at least one socket is a stream socket or a datagram socket.

24. The system of claim 21, further comprising a welding protocol to control and monitor the welder.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the welding protocol includes at least one of options/flags field, a message sequence field, a message status field, a data length field, a data field, a server command field, a server command ID field, a server command arguments field, a machine field, a machine address field, a machine property/method ID field, and a method/property ID field.

26. The system of claim 1, further comprising one or more groupings of welding equipment that is instantiated via objects within the welder.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the welding equipment is controlled from a least one of a remote network system or from one or more networked welders.

28. The system of claim 27, further comprising at least one of a LAN, a phone connection, and a gateway to couple to the network.

29. The system of claim 27, wherein the welder further comprises a welding communications network interface for interacting with the welding equipment separately from the network.

30. The system of claim 26, wherein the welder further comprises at least one of a weld properties and methods database, a weld controller and a weld I/O interface for controlling the welding equipment, the weld properties and methods database provides at least one object to interact with the welder, the weld controller controls at least one control loop and the weld I/O interface operatively couples to at least one control output, discrete output, and feedback input associated with the welding equipment.

31. The system of claim 1, further comprising applets that interact with a JAVA Virtual Machine at a remote interface.

32. The system of claim 1, wherein the welder includes at least one of a browser and a JAVA Virtual Machine to communicate with other welders and remote systems.

33. The system of claim 1, wherein the welder further includes an e-mail component and a communications component for transferring messages and files to and from the welder.

34. The system of claim 1, wherein the weld configuration component transfers at least one of welding programs, welding firmware, and welding procedures to enable modifications of the welder.

35. The system of claim 34, further comprising a graphical user interface (GUI) to enable remote configurations and monitoring of the welder.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the GUI enables logic manipulations, timing manipulations, waveform manipulations, and dynamic manipulations associated with a welder program.

37. The system of claim 36, wherein the manipulations are associated with at least one of a wire feeder, a torch travel, a part handler, and a power supply.

38. The system of claim 1, wherein the weld monitoring component receives weld system and weld control variables from the welder and logs the variables in a database.

39. The system of claim 38, wherein the variables are associated with at least one of timers, counters, sequencers, integers, data elements, operator information, and diagnostics associated with the welder.

40. The system of claim 38, wherein the weld monitoring component examines predetermined rules and policies to determine whether to notify another system or remote user.

41. The system of claim 40, wherein the control commands are issued asynchronously or synchronously via at least one of a transmission control protocol (TCP) socket and a user datagram protocol (UDP) socket.

42. The system of claim 38, further comprising a monitor object that collects information from a control monitor object and a system monitor object, the control monitor object monitoring at least one of weld quality, arc stability, weld supplies, and weld feedback, the system monitor object monitoring at least one of operator shift schedules, system maintenance schedules, and operator procedures.

43. The system of claim 38, further comprising at least one of an alarm and an event for triggering messages from the welder.

44. The system of claim 43, wherein the messages are sent via a voice mail, e-mail, telephone, and beeper, to a remote system or remote user.

45. The system of claim 1, wherein the weld control component monitors feedback from at least one weld monitoring component and issues control commands to the welder and at least one other welder or welding network.

46. The system of claim 1, further comprising a welding toolbox providing at least one of a ferrite number predictor of stainless steel welding, a CCT diagram with cooling curve acquired from the a weld, a carbon equivalent calculator, a metric-English converter for common welding units, a hardness unit converter, a temperature unit converter, a gauge unit converter, a deposition rate calculator, a torch travel speed and deposition efficiency calculator;

a weld size and bead shape estimator for single and multipass welding on various joint designs, an interpass temperature calculator, a residual stress and distortion predictor, a mechanical property predictor, a heat input calculator, preheat/postheat calculator, welding cost estimator, wire selector, gas selector, weld joint CAD tool, multipass planner, base metal selector, fatigue strength estimator, tensile strength predictor, impact strength predictor, weld defect estimator and an AWS welding code.

47. The system of claim 1, further comprising a business transaction component to automatically process remote welding supply orders and automatically initiate weld supply shipments.

48. The system of claim 47, further comprising a user interface to monitor remote welders and process the weld supply orders and weld supply shipments.

49. The system of claim 48 wherein a weld operator initiates business transactions from a browser included within the welder.

50. The system of claim 1, further comprising a security component that employs an SSL layer to facilitate communications over the network.

51. The system of claim 50, wherein the security component further comprises at least one of an Authentication and Authorization component, an encryption component, and a Weld Policy Module to facilitate communications over the network.

52. The system of claim 1, further comprising a computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for executing at least a portion of the distributed welding system.

53. A method to provide distributed welding coordination, comprising:

coupling a welder to a network interface;

utilizing at least one of an HTTP or a Welding Application socket to establish a network connection through the network interface to a remote system, wherein the HTTP socket is employed for web communications and the Welding Application socket is employed to exchange information between the welder and the remote system; and

providing a welding protocol to communicate to the remote systems to enable distributed welding coordination, wherein the welding protocol includes at least one of options/flags field, a message sequence field, a message status field, a data length field, a data field, a server command field, a server command ID field, a server command arguments field, a machine field, a machine address field, a machine property/method ID field, and a method/property ID field.

54. The method of claim 53, further comprising at least one of the following acts:

monitoring welding functions;

coordinating and controlling between welders;

providing remote configuration capabilities;

providing a remote interface; and

enabling remote business transactions.

55. The method of claim 54, wherein the act of monitoring welding functions further comprises:

monitoring control functions;

monitoring system functions;

directing monitoring and alarm data to a remote system or user;

logging the monitoring and alarm data; and

notifying a system or user based upon the monitoring and alarm data.

56. The method of claim 54, wherein the act of coordinating and controlling between welders further comprises:

initiating distributed welding commands to at least one other welding system; and

receiving monitoring information from the at least one other welding system to determine when the welding commands have completed.

57. The method of claim 54, wherein the act of providing remote configuration further comprises:

selecting a configuration item to update;

starting a welder configuration object to perform the update; and

transferring configuration data to the welder.

58. The method of claim 54, wherein the act of providing a remote interface further comprises:

loading an interface component;

providing at least one of programming, editing, and monitoring interactivity with the interface component;

selecting remote welding functions; and

invoking a remote object to perform the remote welding functions.

59. The method of claim 54, wherein the act of enabling remote business transactions further comprises:

monitoring welding supply and order information from remote location;

receiving remote orders from welding system;

shipping welding supplies to remote locations; and

adjusting sales and distribution forecasts associated with the supply and order information.

60. A distributed welding system, comprising:

means for a coupling a welder to a server to enable a network architecture, the network architecture serving a means communicating with a remote system, the remote system including at least one of a remote interface, a weld configuration component, a weld monitoring component, and a weld control component within the distributed welding system, wherein the remote system includes a means for web communications and a means for exchanging information between the welder and the remote system; and

means for providing a welding protocol to communicate to the remote system to enable distributed welding coordination, wherein the welding protocol includes at least one of options/flags field, a message sequence field, a message status field a data length field, a data field, a server command field, a server command ID field, a server command arguments field, a machine field, a machine address field, a machine property/method ID field, and a method/property ID field.

61. A data structure providing a welding protocol, comprising:

at least one of an options/flags field, a message sequence field, a message status field, a data length field, a data field, a server command field, a server command ID field, a server command arguments field, a machine field, a machine address field, a machine property/method ID field, and a method/property ID field.

62. A signal for communicating between welding systems, comprising:

a welder operatively coupled to a server and a network interface via a signal to enable a network architecture, the network architecture serving a network that communicates to at least one remote system via the signal with at least one of a remote interface, a weld configuration component, a weld monitoring component, and a weld control component, wherein the remote system includes at least one HTTP socket for web communications via the signal and at least one Welding Application socket to exchange information between the welder and the remote system via the signal.

63. The signal of claim 62, further comprising a welding protocol packet.

64. The system of claim 62 wherein the signal is transmitted via at least one of a network connection and a wireless connection.

65. A distributed welding system, comprising:

an application layer of TCP/IP associated with a Welding Application socket that encapsulates a native welding system addressing and command arguments;

an agent that communicates to the Welding application socket to proxy requests over the socket to and/or from the native welding system, wherein the native welding system includes at least one of one or more control processors and a native welding LAN distinct from the Welding Application socket to couple the one or more control processors.

66. The system of claim 65, further comprising one or more logical processes, tasks, and/or objects executing on the one or more control processors, wherein at least one of a database, a table and a spreadsheet provides access to methods or properties exhibited by each process.

67. The system of claim 65, herein the agent is embedded in the native welding system or resides externally on a gateway.

68. The system of claim 65, further comprising at least one application served by a web server that is resident on and/or remote to the native welding system that opens a Welding Application socket port to enable the application to address and control the welding system directly.