Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
DOI 10.1007/s00170-004-2171-y
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Received: 4 July 2003 / Accepted: 5 March 2004 / Published online: 26 January 2005
Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005
Abstract This paper describes a developed automatic welding
control system for alternating current shield metal arc welding.
It replaces manual operations which require a well-trained technician. We derived a mathematical model of the welding control
system and identified the value of the system parameters thereof.
A fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller modulates the rate of an
electrode feed mechanism that regulates arc current. The electrode feed rate mechanism with this controller driven by an AC
servomotor can both compensate for the molting part of the electrode and the undesirable fluctuation of the arc length during
welding operation. It can also be easily applied to any welding
system whose electrode is consumed during the welding process. By maintaining the magnitude of the arc current at the
desired value and ensuring the stability of the arc length, excellent welding performance can be obtained. The simulation and
experimental results both show that this automatic welding control system, based on the fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller,
can perform effectively.
Keywords Fuzzy Gain scheduling PID controller
Shielded metal arc welding Welding robot
Nomenclature
a
e
e
na
nb
nk
J
ki
ku
vf
vm
Ai
Bi
Ci
Di
Kd
Ki
Kp
Ku
Kt
Tu
Ua
K p
K d
K p,i
K d,i
C(s)
E(s)
G(s)
H(s)
U(s)
Ia (s)
Ir (s)
i
i
282
Ai
MF value of the fuzzy set Ai , given some value of e.
Bi
MF value of the fuzzy set Bi , given some value of e .
xSmall () Fuzzy output variable for the rule Small.
xBig () Fuzzy output variable for the rule Big.
1 Introduction
Welding machines are widely used in the industry. Of a variety
of welding processes, stick electrode welding is the most common. It is more formally known as shielded metal arc welding
(SMAW) and conventionally performed by manual operators.
Although the labor wages continue to rise up and manufacturers
are moving to automate their processes for increasing productivity, SMAW still holds a large share of the total welding filler
metal business. This is largely due to its attractive advantages
including exceptional versatility, low cost of equipment, convenient power source, low maintenance costs, durability, relative
simplicity of operation, and ease of set-up [1, 2].
The welding performance can be improved by appropriate
inverter control [3]. There have been many control methods proposed for this such as output current slope control and pulsed
output current control [4]. Since these control methods have basically ignored the welding problems occurring in the metal transfer procedure itself, this may result in the welding procedure to
be performed under non-optimal conditions, so that there can be
only limited reduction of spatter generation, as described in [5].
A more desirable welding performance can be achieved by incorporating an instantaneous output current control, which is based
on a metal transfer procedure using the feedback current control
method [6, 7]. However, the practical implementation of this type
of control is complex, since it requires an optimum reference
waveform of output currents, and sophisticated adjustment of the
gain of the current controller. All papers on this subject have focused on gas metal arc welding (GMAW) and gas tungsten arc
welding (GTAW).
The SMAW process is conventionally performed manually.
The arc is initiated no sooner than the electrode touches the base
metal. After igniting the electrode, the heat of the arc melts the
surface of the base metal to form a molten pool at the end of
the electrode, and the electrode supplies the filler metal in the
welding process. In the SMAW process, the electrode also acts as
a consumed material in this welding process. It requires a welltrained technician to perform such a consumed electrode welding
technique. To develop an automatic welding control system for
replacing manual welding, the main challenge is how to control
the feed-rate of the electrode to preserve the stability of the arc
during the welding process. This is also the central object in this
study.
The best known controller for the industrial application is
the PID controller, whose design requires the determination of
three parameters: the proportional gain, integral time constants,
and the derivative time constant. The Ziegler-Nichols [8] turning method may be the most popular among the various kinds
of turning methods, which have been developed for this purpose. On the other hand, the application of knowledge-based
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(1)
(2)
where ki is the coefficient ratio of the melting rate to the arc current, and ku is the coefficient ratio of the melting rate to the arc
voltage. Substituting Eq. 1 into Eq. 2, we can obtain the following equation:
Ia =
v f ku
+ Ua .
ki
ki
(3)
Fig. 2. Current output characteristic and the arc static characteristic for
a SMAW welding process with constant current power supply
(5)
Kt
.
ki (Js + a)
(6)
284
Fig. 3. Block diagram for an open loop transfer function of the SMAW
welding control system
(1) Normalize the two controller gains K p and K d , the range between zero and one, i.e., K p , K d [0, 1] via the following
linear transformation:
K p = K p K p,min / K p,max K p,min ,
K d = K d K d,min / K d,max K d,min ,
(8)
where the appropriate prescribed ranges K p. min , K p. max
and [K d. min , K d. max ] are determined experimentally.
(2) Determine the parameters K p , K d , and by a set of fuzzy
reasoning rules of the following form:
If e is Ai and e is Bi , then K p is Ci , K d is Di , and is i
i = 1, 2, , m ,
Fig. 4. Block diagram of the controlled plant for an automatic SMAW welding process
(7)
It is clear that the transfer function in Eq. 7 is a first-order nominal transfer function with one pole located on the left half part
of the s-plane. The DC gain of the SMAW control system transfer function is 114, which means that the nominal current output
will be 114 A if we apply 1 V as input to the system.
(9)
where Ai , Bi , Ci , and Di are fuzzy sets on the corresponding supporting sets, and i is a fuzzy number with a singleton
membership function.
(3) Seven triangular membership functions are used for the two
inputs e and e for the fuzzy controller, while only two are
used for the outputs, K p , K d ; four singletons define the output i .
(4) The fuzzy sets, Ci and Di , may be either Big or Small and are
characterized by the membership function (MF) , where the
membership function and the fuzzy variables x are represented by the following functions:
xSmall () = e4 ,
4
xBig () = 1 e
(10)
(11)
m
i K p,i ,
i=1
K d =
=
m
i=1
m
i K d,i
,
i i .
i=1
(12)
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K p,max = 0.6K u ,
K d,min = 0.08K u Tu ,
K d,max = 0.15K u Tu ,
(14)
Fig. 7. Parameters of the fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller in Fig. 6
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram for a closed loop SMAW controlling system with
fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller
Fig. 6. Simulation result of the fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller using
80 A as the reference command input
A schematic diagram of the structure of the automatic welding control system is shown in Fig. 1. It includes a PC-based
controller (586 PC Computer), a welding robot driven by an
AC servomotor, a current sensor, and a welding power source.
The welding current is measured by the current sensor, and then
transferred to a digital signal by an A/D converter, which acts
as feedback to the PC-based controller. The controller evaluates the error signals via the implemented fuzzy gain scheduling PID control algorithm, and sends the output signal through
a D/A converter to an amplifier. The amplifier drives AC servomotor A, which is built into the welding robot, to regulate the
electrode feed-rate.
An LEM HAS 200 SI current sensor, which is of the Hall
effect type, is used to measure the welding current. The peak current and the rms rated voltage of the sensor are 200 A and 50 V,
respectively. We also use a PC-based controller, which is capable
of realizing the complex control algorithm, to control this welding system. The welding current command is set to 80 A. The
centerline of the electrode driven by the AC servomotor B is kept
vertical to the welding path and the direction of its movement
is tangential to the welding path. The current controller controls
the electrode feed-rate. The electrode type is E4313, and the core
wire diameter is 2.6 mm.
Figure 8 shows the steady state response of the experimental arc current for this SMAW controlling system controlled by
a fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller with 80 A as the reference
286
Fig. 8. Experimental arc current output response using 80 A as the step reference command input
Fig. 10. Plate position welding experiment
Fig. 9. Experimental parameters K p , K i , and K d of the fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller in Fig. 8
287
References
5 Conclusion
In this paper, an automatic SMAW control system, based on a
fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller is developed for an alternating current power supply welding machine. A mathematical
model of this automatic welding control system is obtained by
analyzing physical laws and the system identification method.
By employing a Hall effect current sensor to measure the arc
current, a desirable closed-loop control system is formed. The
fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller determines the output signal by evaluating the error signal and the derivative error signal
obtained using a current sensor. This control output signal is
then sent to a welding robot driven by an AC servomotor, so
that the electrode feed-rate mechanism can be controlled and
the arc length can be regulated to obtain the desired current
setting value. We also examine the performance of this fuzzy
gain scheduling PID controller experimentally. The experiments
show that the developed automatic SMAW control system, with
a fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller can not only replace man-