Welding Robot Controlled Using PSO-Fuzzy Technique

This work addressed the use of a robot arm with flexible joints as a welding robot for oil pipeline networks. One of the trickiest processes with strict quality criteria is welding oil pipelines. A highly skilled welder with considerable expertise is typically required. At the moment, robotics technology is sophisticated and is used in many technical applications. Robotics are highly precise workers; They operate with high precision and minimal error during their job implementations. In this paper, a classic PID controller is employed to control the welding robot arm movements since the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller requires parameter tuning in the presence of any disturbance. Intelligent controllers are required, and for this purpose, a fuzzy logic controller is presented to improve the welding robot's performance during changing circumstances of operation. To optimize the fuzzy parameters, a particle swarm optimization method (PSO) is proposed to determine the selection of the optimal values of the fuzzy membership’s parameters. The simulation results show that the suggested controller has high performance during welding, even in the presence of disturbances.