Bilinear model predictive control of plasma keyhole pipe welding process

Controlled quasi-keyhole plasma arc welding process adjusts the amperage of the peak current to establish a keyhole in a desired time. This keyhole establishment time is the major parameter that controls the consistence of the weld penetration/quality and needs to be accurately controlled. This paper addresses the control of keyhole establishment time during pipe welding around the circumference, in which the gravitational force acting on the weld pool continuously changes. Because of this continuous change, the dynamic model of the controlled process, with the keyhole establishment time as the output and the amperage of the peak current as the input, varies around the circumference during welding. In addition, it is found that this dynamic model is nonlinear. To control this time varying nonlinear process, the authors propose an adaptive bilinear model predictive control (MPC) algorithm. A self-search algorithm is proposed to decouple the input and output in the model to apply the proposed MPC. Experiments confirmed the effectiveness of the developed control system including the adaptive bilinear MPC.