Innovation Fall 2026

ROBOTICS BEHIND THE ARC: innovations in welding autonomy

By Shereen Lee Robotics and automation are assisting with the challenges of complex welding processes and relieving some of the physical pressures welders experience.

T he fabrication halls of Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards are punctuated by buzzing sounds and flashes of bright blue arcs as welders fuse together the skeleton of a $3.15-billion ship, joint by joint. The shipyard is building a polar icebreaker as part of Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy, scheduled for delivery in 2032. For a project like this, all welding torches are on deck. "When you have a large-scale project such as a polar ship, which is the first of its class in the country, many challenges have not been seen or forecast before," said Ali Moallem, P.Eng., Canadian Welding Bureau (CWB) Level 3 welding inspector and manager of welding engineering at Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards. "So we are always looking for a higher-performance process." For more than a decade, Seaspan has been working to optimize how its ships are built, meet demanding schedules and increase the safety and reliability of its welding processes. "We progress from hand welding to semiautomatic welding, from semiautomatic to mechanized welding, and from mechanized to robotic welding where possible," Moallem said. But some processes resist standardization. "Think about what a welder does," said Mathew Smith, P.Eng., a CWB-certified welding engineer and director of BCIT's Centre for Welding Technologies and Metallurgy Research. "A welder manipulates a molten pool of metal. They move it around and control it. Each welder has their own technique. There are lots of different ways to achieve the same weld, but that's a skill that takes years to master."

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