A simple nonlinear control of a two-wheeled welding mobile robot

Abstract

This paper proposes a simple, robust, nonlinear controller based on Lyapunov stability for tracking the reference welding path and velocity of a two-wheeled welding mobile robot (WMR). The system has three degrees of freedom including two wheels and one torch slider. Torch slider motion is used for faster tracking because the welding speed is very slow. Control law is obtained from the Lyapunov control function to ensure the asymptotical stability of the system. The controller has three free parameters for adjusting the performance of the controlled system. A simple way of measuring the errors using two potentiometers is introduced. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is shown through simulation results.