The lack of a complete comprehension of the physical phenomena occurring during the welding process, and the demanding quality standards to be found in this framework, have forced scientists to carry out an intense research effort in both welding physics and procedures devoted to cope with quality issues. Some of these studies have been focused on the development of theoretical models for both arc and laser welding [1-3], including numerical analysis approaches [4]. These efforts help to understand the process and, therefore, to determine the precise input parameter ranges that will provide seams free of flaws.

However, in practice welding coupons employed for parameter adjustment, and both destructive and non-destructive trials [5] have to be used to ensure that the performed seams satisfy the established quality standards.

This obviously implies a significant cost in terms of productivity, as a lot of time is spent before and after the welding process itself, and, therefore, some of the seams have to be reworked and evaluated again.This scenario has led to an intense research effort aimed at developing efficient and reliable on-line welding quality monitoring systems. They should be able to detect in real-time the occurrence of possible defects and, as an added value, to control the welding setup to try to avoid these defects or drifts from the standard operation conditions.

Several techniques have been proposed, from electrical and capacitive sensors [6,7], to monitoring based on the analysis of the acoustic signal generated during the process [8,9] or solutions based on machine vision [10,11].

Among Anacetrapib these alternatives, the optical analysis of the welding plasma radiation has proved to be a feasible and promising option. Initial proposals were based on the use of photodiodes and the analysis of emissions in the ultraviolet, visible and infrared regions [12], determining for example the full-penetration condition in laser welding [13].A more sophisticated approach has been proposed by considering plasma optical spectroscopy, where emission lines appearing in the plasma spectra are analyzed Brefeldin_A to provide a plasma electron temperature Te profile that shows a direct correlation to weld defects [14,15].

In the last years, several publications have dealt with refinements of this technique, allowing automatic defect detection [16] and reducing the overall computational cost of the system [17]. More recently, new strategies have been proposed to extract more information from the plasma spectra, like the correlation analysis proposed by Sibillano et al. [18], or proposals based on the use of optimization algorithms to generate synthetic spectra [19].