The weld seam tracking sensor is indispensable to improve the flexibility of automatic arc welding systems. Among the position sensing methods available, a laser displacement sensor is one of the most prevailing methods. In this study, a laser displacement sensor was examined on detecting the weld seam of lap joints in sheet metal arc welding. The output signal of the laser displacement sensor may ontain severe fluctuation from the effect of arc light, spatters, fume, etc. So a variety of signal processing methods was applied to smooth the output signal of the sensor. And then the weld joint was determined by using the central difference method. It was revealed that the quadratic mean method plays an important role in detecting the weld seam during welding especially.