Sliding mode control of an autonomous welding robot

Welding robots are seldom entirely autonomous, mainly because a robotic arm, integrated in an assembly line, produces better results. There are, however, situations, such as welding inside pipes, or in shipyards, where autonomous welding robots are really helpful. This paper presents integral and proportional integral sliding mode control techniques for controlling the speed of DC motors. Results of the simulations in Matlab and LabView show that such controllers are suitable for speed/ position control of the DC motors that drive autonomous mobile robots. The system described here has low chattering, which results in good quality of the welding.