Motion control of two-wheeled welding mobile robot with seam tracking sensor

This paper describes development results of a 2 wheeled welding mobile robot with seam tracking sensor touched on welding line. The motion control is realized in the view of keeping constant welding velocity and precise seam line even though the target welding line is on straight or curved one. The body position and direction are controlled by using signal errors between two potentiometer type of touched sensors attached on torch slider and body side. In turning motion, the body and torch slider are controlled by using the kinematic mathematical model related with two motions of body turning and torch sliding. The straight locomotion is controlled according to 11 control patterns obtained from displacements between seam tracking sensor and body positioning sensor. The effectiveness is proven through the experimental results for arc welding machine.