Process monitoring and control for laser materials processing - an overview

In laser beam materials processing, the high demands on the quality of the produced parts can only be guaranteed by a continuous supervision of the manufacturing process and by control of specific features of the manufactured product. By means of ISO 9000 and other law enforced rules it is sometimes even necessary to document the quality of each manufactured part. This can only be achieved by reliable online process control systems. This paper will give an overview of the most common process monitoring techniques based on the measurement of electromagnetic process radiation. Industrial applications and commercial monitoring systems using this techniques will exemplarily be presented.