Today, implementation of the defect detection in laser welding has been researched for a long time, but most studies have been made around thin plate within $1{sim}3mm^t$. Therefore, this study was measured and analyzed light emission signals of the induced plasma in $CO_2$ laser lap welding of $6mm^t$ Zn primer-coated steel, and based on this analysis, research made an investigation into possibility of monitoring in thick plate welding. It was been analyzing the measured signals by RMS and FFT processing, as a results, we were able to confirm definite difference of two signals between humping bead and sound bead. Thus, possibility of real time monitoring in $CO_2$ laser lap welding verified experimentally.