Design and experimental verification of an intelligent wall-climbing welding robot system

Purpose – This paper aims to present a new intelligent wall-climbing welding robot system for large-scale steel structure manufacture, which is composed of robot body, control system and welding system. Design/methodology/approach – The authors design the robot system according to application requirements, validate the design through simulation and experiments and use the robot in actual production. Findings – Experimental results show that the robot system satisfies the demands of automatic welding of large-scale ferromagnetic structure, which contributes much to on-site manufacturing of such structures. Practical implications – The robot can work with better quality and efficiency compared with manual welding and other semi-automatic welding devices, which can much improve large-scale steel structure manufacturing. Originality/value – The robot system is a novel solution for large-scale steel structures welding. There are three major advantages: the robot body with reliable adsorption ability, large payload capability and good mobility which meet the requirements of welding; the control system with good welding seam tracking accuracy and intelligent automatic welding ability; and friendly human – computer interface which makes the robot easy to use.