Native American Technologies

The goal of this project was to develop a realistic, low-cost welding training system based on virtual reality technology. Welding is a key skill for shipbuilding and welding training is a significant expense for shipbuilders. Improvements in the training process and any reduction in the time required to train and qualify welders will provide a cost benefit to the shipbuilding industry. Low-cost was seen as a critical issue for this project. There are other commercially available virtual welding systems on the market already. However, due to their high initial cost none have been purchased by any of the commercial shipyards in the U.S. The goal of this project was to create a system that could become a successful commercial product at a significantly lower cost than other available systems. The means to achieving a low-cost system was to make use of consumer level equipment and to repurpose existing weld monitoring software for use in weld simulation. A working virtual welding system has been developed. It consists of a typical GMAW welding torch, a modified welding helmet containing a small video display, and a typical suitcase wirefeed controller. The motion of the torch is tracked using a commercial video tracking system. User