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Online Measuring Power factor in AC

Resistance Spot Welding
Kang Zhou, Lilong Cai, Member, IEEE

AbstractPower factor is a very important process variable in

AC resistance spot welding (RSW) operation. Because of the
variation of welding load during the welding process, power
factor is a time-varying variable. The power factor of RSW
cannot be obtained online due to the fact that the value of power
factor angle cannot be measured directly in real time. After
analyzing the electrical structure of RSW, a new algorithm for
measuring power factor angle in real time is developed. Then an
integrated algorithm for calculating the power factor on practical
discrete system in real time is proposed. Experiments were
conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm can
be used to obtain more accurate values of the power factor angle
than using other methods over a very large operation range. The
final results of power factors obtained from the proposed
algorithm are very close to the results from the numerical
simulation.
Index Termspower factor, power factor angle, resistance
spot welding (RSW), silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR), step-down
transformer

I. INTRODUCTION
esistance spot welding (RSW) is one of the most widely
used, inexpensive and efficient sheet metal objects
joining methods in modern manufacturing process[1].
Currently, though there are two types of RSW: single-phase
Alternative Current (AC) RSW and three-phase Medium
Frequency Direct Current (MFDC) RSW; single-phase AC
RSW is still used predominantly in modern industry because
of its simplicity and popularity in actual applications over
three-phase MFDC RSW[2], [3].
The power source of single-phase AC RSW machine
utilizes two silicon-controlled rectifiers (SCR) to control the
amount of energy entering the system. One SCR passes the
current during the positive half cycle and the other during the
negative half cycle[4]. The welding control action is to set the
firing angle of SCR for each control cycle, and then a burst of
pulsed current, which is about 5kA-20kA in common, passes
the welding load. There is an idle duration between welding

Manuscript received August 3, 2012; revised October 9, 2012; accepted for

publication January 3, 2013.
Copyright 2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted.
However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be
obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to pubs-permissions@ieee.org.
Kang Zhou is with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China. (Tel: +852
95254305, email: zhoukang@ust.hk)
Lilong Cai is with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China. (email:
melcai@ust.hk)

currents of two continuous control cycles. The welding load

obtains the energy from the power source through a step-down
transformer. The controller of the RSW is actually an ON/OFF
timer for the corresponding SCR during each control cycle in
reality. It is well known that the resistance welder is a source
of voltage fluctuation and flicker in the industry power
distribution systems. It will cause some problems during the
welding process, such as unbalance voltage and harmonics,
especially when many RSW machines are working
simultaneously and sharing the same AC power source [5]. To
overcome these drawbacks and improve the welds quality, the
power factor should be known before designing the
compensator for each control cycle. Since the power factor
angle derived in[5] cannot be expressed explicitly using the
measurable parameters, a database of power factor angle
which is obtained offline was used. The size of the database
depends on the resolution requirement. In addition to the
voltage compensation, real time value of power factor is also
useful in power factor correction, which is used more in
current applications[6], [7]. Hence, online measuring the
power factor angle is essential for ensuring the reliable firing
the SCRs[8].
However, the inductive characteristics of the welding
transformer lead to a non-sinusoidal welding current. Variation
of the welding load, especially the workpiece during the
welding process[9], leads to a time-varying power factor angle
in AC RSW. Because the power factor angle of the RSW
cannot be expressed explicitly with measurable parameters, it
is difficult to be directly obtained in real time[10]. Since
power factor angle is a part of power factor, the power factor
of the RSW also cannot be measured in real time. Many
researches have been conducted on this issue.
Jurek[11] used the phase lag angle between mains voltage
and welding current to replace the power factor angle to
measure the power factor in order to avoid the difficulty of
directly measuring the power factor. Gong et al [12] pointed
out that substitution may lead to a large error. To overcome the
problem, an offline trained embedded ANN (artificial neural
network) was proposed in [10], [12] to be used to execute the
online measurement. Though the work can obtain the value of
power factor angle in real time, the ANN consists of three
layers and 1200 neural nodes, which implies a large amount of
calculations during real time application. In addition, the
training data of the power factor angle is from 25o to 85o with
5o intervals, it is possible that the number of the neural nodes
may further increase when a high resolution of measurement is
required.

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Hence, developing an effective algorithm to obtain the

power factor in real time is still a challenging issue. Obviously,
the key is to find an alternative method which makes the
power factor an explicit function with respect to the
measurable parameters.
In this work, after analyzing the power factor based on the
electrical structure and the definition of AC RSW, a numerical
description for calculating the power factor is presented based
on the general solution of the loop equation of RSW. To obtain
an explicit expression of power factor, a new algorithm for
online calculating the power factor angle is developed based
on re-analysis of the loop equation. Then corresponding
algorithms for realizing the online calculation of the power
factor on a practical digitalized processing environment is
proposed. Corresponding experiments were conducted. Finally
the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm
were validated by comparison of experimental results with
other methods and numerical simulation.

reactance of the system, respectively, U is the effective value

of mains voltage. To use a mathematical method to illustrate
the model, two hypotheses as shown in [12] and [14] are used:
(1), the SCR forward resistance during its conduction is zero
and the forward drop is neglected; (2), the backward resistance
is infinite. Then assuming the SCR is turned on at time t=0
and the corresponding firing angle is , the loop equation for
one control cycle can be stated as:
di
u(t) = L + Ri = 2Usin(t + ) .
(1)
dt
where u and i denote the instantaneous voltage and current
applied on the welding load, respectively, denotes the
angular frequency of the system, =2f, and f denotes the
frequency of the AC power source, its value is 50Hz under
usual experimental conditions . Then the instantaneous current
i can be obtained through solving equation (1) in one control
cycle:

i (t ) =
II. ELECTRICAL STRUCTURE AND POWER FACTOR IN AC RSW
A. Electrical Structure and Process Parameters of AC RSW
The electrical circuit of AC RSW typically consists of two
parallel SCRs, which controls the amount of energy from the
AC power source to the system during each control cycle, a
step-down transformer which transits the current from the
SCRs to the welding load. The schematic presentation of the
circuit is shown in Fig.1 [13].

2U
[sin(t + ) e
Z

t
tan

sin( )] ,

(2)

where Z
, and the power factor angle of
the system can be denoted as arctan
. Its value
range is [0,90o]. Firing angle is the input for regulating the
amount of energy entering the system during each control
cycle. During the welding process, only one of the two SCRs
can be turned on at any instant. As a result, the welding
current is discontinuous between adjacent control cycles.
The welding current i(t) consists of two different parts, a
force component i1 and a free component i2. The former is a
sine wave, while the latter is an exponential decay wave.
Fig.3[12] shows the electrical working wave form.

Fig.1. Schematic presentation of AC RSW

where Lp and Rp denote the equivalent resistance and inductive

reactance in the primary coil of the transformer; while Ls and
Rs denote the same parameters in the secondary coil, RL
denotes the welding load, which is between the upper and
lower electrodes during the welding process. The influence of
the parasitic parameters is neglected as in the previous works
[5], [8], [10] and [11], because of the low operation frequency
of the system.
Similar to what has been done in [5] and[12], one
equivalent model, which transfers all the components in the
secondary coil to the primary coil, is used in this paper. The
schematic presentation of the model is shown in Fig.2.

Fig.3. Electrical working wave form of RSW

where is the conduction angle, which is employed to denote

the actual effective period of welding action. Its value range is
[0,180o]. Since the firing angle of SCR is defined from the
preceding zero-crossing of mains voltage, the value range of
is also [0,180o].
The relation between three angles, , and can be derived
when t= in equation (2), at this moment, the welding
current is equal to zero as shown in Fig.3. Hence, the
following equation can be obtained:

sin( + ) sin( )e
Fig.2. Equivalent RSW model

where R and L denote the equivalent resistance and inductive

tan

= 0.

(3)

This equation only relates to the three angles: , and .

The sole unknown parameter in equation (3) is the power

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factor angle. However, equation (3) is a transcendental

equation which cannot be analytically solved. It can be solved
only numerically. The numerical solution of the equation is
provided in Fig.4. From left to right, the curves denote from
0 to 90o ascending at an angle increment of 10o.

Kp can be written as:

Kp =

IRMS (1)
IRMS

[sin(t + ) e

t
tan

[sin(t + ) e

sin( )]2 sin2 tdt

t
tan

Fig.4. Relationship between the three parameters: , , .

According to equation (3) and Fig.4, the value of power

factor angle is decided only by the values of and . In [5],
a similar figure was used to generate a database for a real time
application. Clearly, the size of the database depends on the
resolution of the power factor angle needed in the application.
The resolution of the power factor angles depends on the
sampling frequency used in digitizing this figure. Hence, this
algorithm is not a direct one and may use up a lot of memory
space. For simplicity, an easy to realize and precise algorithm
is needed.
B. Power Factor in AC RSW
Because the welding operation is conducted during each
half cycle of the AC power source, the power factor is also
analyzed during each half cycle in order to reveal its dynamic
features. One half cycle of the AC power source denotes one
control cycle of the RSW operation. Hence, the frequency of
control actions is twice that of the frequency of the AC power
source. Note that during each control cycle, the welding
current is a non-sinusoidal wave, though the mains voltage is
sinusoidal. The definition of the power factor for this type of
circuit is[15]:

pf =

1
1 + THD

cos =

I RMS (1)
I RMS

cos = K p Kd

(4)

where pf denotes the power factor of the circuit, THD is the

total harmonic distortion of the load current, IRMS(1) the
root-mean-square(RMS) value of the fundamental harmonic
current of the instantaneous current, and IRMS the RMS value
of the total instantaneous current. The ratio of IRMS(1) to IRMS,
which is denoted as Kp , is a distortion factor, which is used to
describe how the harmonic distortion of the load current
decreases the average power transferred to the welding load.
On the other hand, cos, which is denoted as Kd, is a
displacement factor. Hence, measuring the power factor can be
divided into two parts: obtaining Kp and Kd in real time,
respectively.
According to the general solution (2), which denotes
instantaneous current of the equivalent model of AC RSW, and
the definition of power factor, the mathematical description of

(5)

sin( )] dt
2

It can be seen that the value Kp is decided only by the values of

, and . In addition, the value of is decided by the values
of and . This means that Kp is dependent upon one array of
data of and exclusively in this situation, as well as the
value of Kd (cos ).
As shown above, it is not possible to obtain an explicit
function with respect to the measurable parameters to
represent either the power factor angle or power factor,
because the power factor angle cannot be explicitly
expressed. In addition, it is also worth noting that the solution
in equation (2) only holds when based on the assumption that
the equivalent resistance R in equation (1) is a constant.
However, during the welding process, since the dynamic
resistance of the workpiece is strongly influenced by the
welding temperature, the equivalent resistance should be
modeled as a time-varying resistance[16]. Under these
circumstances, equations (2) may not represent the true
solution due to the fact that equation (1) is not an ordinary
differential equation. Then equation(3) may not represent the
true relationship among the power factor angle, firing angle
and conduction angle, and so is it shown in Fig.4. It can be
considered as an approximation or a reference primarily for
illustrating the relationship.
Hence, a different approach should be used in order to
measure the power factor pf or power factor angle of RSW
in real time with the consideration of the time-varying
resistance during the welding process.

III. A PROPOSED ALGORITHM FOR ONLINE CALCULATION OF

THE POWER FACTOR
A. A proposed algorithm for Online Calculation of Power
Factor Angle
To obtain the value of power factor angle , equation (1)
should be re-examined in depth. Instead of considering the
general solution for equation (1), each individual control cycle
can be focused on independently. During each control cycle,
though the equivalent resistance R is treated as a time-varying
variable R(t), the inductive reactance L, can be considered as a
constant, since inductive reactance is not strongly influenced
by the welding temperature. Then equation (1) can be
re-written as:
di
(6)
L + R(t )i = 2Usin(t + )
dt
The integral operation can be applied to this equation
according to Fig.3, where the unit in the lateral axis is t; the
range of integration is [0, ], which denotes the effective
period of the welding current during one control cycle:

di

L dt dt + R(t)idt =
0

2U sin(t +)dt ,
0

(7)

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Then, for the first term on the left of the above equation,

di

(8)
0 L dt dt = Li 0 = 0 ,
welding currents are zeros when t=0 and t=. In addition,
R(t) denotes the time-varying equivalent resistance of the
RSW system. During one control cycle, its value does not
change significantly. Hence, the second term on the left of
equation (7) can be written as:

where R

R (t )id t = R id t .

(9)

= R(t )idt / idt . It can be considered as

the average equivalent resistance during one control cycle. It

is a constant which can approximately denote the equivalent
resistance during one control cycle. Then equation (7) can be
written as:

R idt = 2U sin(t + )dt = 2U [cos cos( + )] , (10)

Then the equivalent resistance
derived as:

R=

in the control cycle can be

2U [cos cos( + )]

idt

= 2U

V1
I1 .

(11)

where V1 and I1 are employed to replace the corresponding

terms in equation(11), respectively.
In addition, one point from t=0 and t= is chosen
randomly; the point is denoted as 1. Then the integral
operation also can be applied to equation (6), with the range [0,
1].

Li

t =1

+ R idt = 2U sin(t + )dt

,
(12)
Because R(t) can be considered as a constant and has no
significant changes during one control cycle, the average
equivalent resistance
in equation(9) over [0,] can be
assumed to be the same as the one over [0,1]. Then the
description of L can be derived as:
1

L=

2U [cos cos( + 1 )] R idt

0

t =1

2U V2 RI2
i t =1
, (13)

where V2 and I2 are employed to replace the corresponding

terms in equation(13), respectively.
According to the definition of power factor angle , its
value for one control cycle should be:

= arctan

R .

(14)

Then using the descriptions in equations (11) and (13),

equation (14) can be written as:
L
= a rc ta n
R
(15)
2 U V 2 2 U (V 1 / I 1 ) I 2 ,
= a r c t a n [
]
i t = 1 ( 2 U (V 1 / I 1 ) )
= a r c t a n (

V 2 I 1 V1 I 2
)
i t = 1 V1

Using this mathematical description, the value of power factor

angle can be obtained from measureable parameters in real
time. In this description, V2 and V1 can be calculated using ,
and 1. Firing angle is the input parameter; according to
Fig.3, conduction angle can be obtained via detecting when
the welding current becomes zero. 1 can be chosen randomly
between t=0 and t=, then the current value at t=1 can
be confirmed correspondingly. I1 and I2 can be obtained from
actual data acquisition and processing. Then the cosine value
of can be obtained based on the actual data acquisition and
processing of the welding current. Once the value of cos,
which is the displacement factor Kd, is obtained, together with
Kp, the integrated value of the power factor can be then
obtained in real time. The detailed online calculation method
is stated in the following part.
B. Online Realization the Proposed Algorithm in
Digitalized Processing Environment
Nowadays, RSW operation is conducted in a digitally
controlled environment. In other words, the algorithm in the
above will be realized through discrete calculations.
First, let us consider how the distortion factor Kp in equation
(5) can be calculated. It is easy to be calculated using discrete
operations according to its definition. In actual operation, the
range between t=0 and t= can be detected: the former
boundary can be confirmed using the firing angle of the SCR,
while the latter boundary can be detected using zero-crossing
detection of the welding current during each control cycle.
During this range, the actual values of the welding currents
can be obtained using a current sensor, and subsequently
converted into discrete numbers by an Analog-Digital (AD)
data acquisition system and stored in the memory. Then the Kp
for one control cycle in discrete operation can be written in the
format:
N

Kp =

I RMS (1)
I RMS

2
d

( j ) sin 2 ( jTs )

j =1

2
d

(16)

( j)

j =1

where id is the actual sampling value of the welding current

during one control cycle, N is the total number of sampling
values in the cycle, and Ts is the actual sampling cycle of the
digital system. The sine calculation should be conducted at
each sampling point. To reduce the calculating time, one
look-up table of sine values is used in actual calculation. The
length of the table is determined by the sampling frequency.
Next, as mentioned above, the values of , , and 1 are
needed to realize equation (15). Firing angle is the input
parameter, hence, the value is known. Also, the value of
conduction angle can be obtained from the range of values
between t=0 and t=. For simplicity, though 1 can be
selected randomly between t=0 and t=, the value of 1
when the welding current wave reaches its peak is
recommended because the value at this point is easy to obtain.
Of course, other points in the cycle can be used; the different
choice of 1 has little influence on solving equation (15). Then
according to equations (11) and (13), the values of V1 and V2
can be solved after the values of , and 1 are obtained. The

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value of the welding current at t=1 will be easy to obtain

once 1 is determined. The values of I1 and I2 can be obtained
also using discrete data acquisition and processing. The
mathematical description of these two calculations can be
written as:
N

I1 = id ( j ) Ts
j =1

,
M
I =
id ( j ) Ts
2
j =1

which means the frequency of the control action was 100Hz

and each control cycle lasted 0.01s. Hence, the maximum
number of data points which could be collected within one
control cycle was less than 64, because the data acquisition is
only conducted when the welding current was not zero. A
fixed firing angle for each control cycle was used in the
experiments.

(17)

where M is the number of sampling values of the welding

current from t=0 to t=1. Then equation (15) can be written
based on all the measurable parameters in the discrete
condition:
N

[cos cos( +1)]id ( j) [cos cos( +)]id ( j)

j=1
j=1
= arctan{2 f Ts
}. (18)
i t=1 [cos cos( +)]

Using Kd=cos() and together with equation (16), the power

factor calculation based on equation (4) can be carried out.
Some trigonometric functions in equation (18) are used, and
their calculations are executed when the welding current is
zero and two SCRs are turned off. In other words, because the
equation (18) is executed once per control cycle, there is
enough time to accomplish all the calculations. Hence, library
functions are used in these trigonometric functions. However,
in practical applications, the online CPU running times for
each computation stage should be monitored to guarantee
there is no time overlap which would give incorrect results.
According to the digitalized calculation, the errors in the
calculation are generated from the actual discrete data
acquisition, which are bounded in practical applications. In
addition, each power factor is obtained from the data
acquisition during each control cycle. In other words, the error
in the previous control cycle cannot influence the calculation
in the next control cycle. The accuracy of each power factor is
decided solely on the data acquisition in its own control cycle.

IV. IMPLEMENTATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

A. Experimental Setup
For verifying the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm of
online measuring the power factor, welding operations were
experimentally conducted. The experimental verifications
were carried out by a 63 kVA single-phase AC RSW machine
as shown in Fig.5. The welding force was determined by the
pressure differential of two air pressure gauges. The pressure
applied was 0.18MPa. The electrode geometry used in the
experiments was the truncated cone with a 160o angle and a
5mm face diameter. The corresponding controller was
implemented by dsPIC6014, which was a Digital Signal
Processor (DSP) manufactured by Microchip Technology Inc.
The realization of the algorithm was achieved in C language.
The sampling frequency used in the experiments for data
acquisition was 6.4 kHz, which was used for sampling the
welding current for calculating the power factor or analyzing
the process; while the frequency of mains voltage was 50Hz,

Fig.5. 63kVA welding machine

The welding current was detected by a Rogowski current

transducer, which was a commonly used transducer for
measuring very large alternating currents[17]. A DSP based
system is well designed with the necessary signal conditioning
and isolation devices to assure accuracy and effectiveness of
the operation.
B. Experimental Result and Validation
For validating the effectiveness of the data obtained from
the proposed method, the experimental results were compared
with the results obtained from equations (3) and (5). Though
equation(3) is highly nonlinear and transcendental, the value
of power factor angle in this equation can be obtained
numerically using MATLAB, if a data array of firing angle
and conduction angle is given. Also, according to equation
(5), the value of Kp can also be obtained numerically using the
given values of , and . Then, the integrated value of the
power factor can be obtained using equation (4). Though
equations (3) and (5) may not be true because the equivalent
resistance R is time-varying rather than a constant variable
during the welding process, the results of the numerical
simulations based on these two equations can be
approximations of the true power factors and used as
references for validating the power factors obtained from the
proposed algorithm.
During the comparison, the power factors obtained from
actual experiments and from the numerical simulation used the
same values of and , which were input parameter and
measurable parameter in reality, respectively.
As stated in [11] and[12], one commonly used method to
measure the power factor angle is to use phase lag angle ,
which is the phase difference between zero-crossings of mains
voltage and the welding current at the end of one control cycle,
as shown in Fig.3, to denote the . In order to evaluate the
improvement of the proposed algorithm relative to this
substitution, is also used for comparison. can be obtained
online using the following equation according to the figure
shown in Fig.3:
(19)
= + .
The two firing angles used in the experiments were 117o
and 81o. The two experiments were carried out with different

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control cycles because different amounts of energy would be

generated by different firing angles. Hence, 12 control cycles
were used for the first experiment, and 8 for the second. In
other words, the welding operations lasted 0.12s and 0.08s,
respectively. Fig. 6 shows the RMS value of the welding
current when the firing angle was 117o.

algorithm in this work can be used to obtain a more accurate

estimate of the power factor angle than using the phase lag
angle to denote it. As for the power factor, the maximum
absolute error between PF1 and PF2 was 0.0519(8.4%, in
No.1), while the mean absolute error was 0.0334(5.8%). The
results verify that the proposed algorithm can be used to
online obtain estimates of the power factor angle and power
factor with small errors.
Fig.7 shows the RMS values of the welding current in the
second experiment when the firing angle was 81o.

Fig.6. RMS value of welding current (firing angle: 117o)

where the RMS values of the welding currents were calculated

for each control cycle. The welding current was fluctuating as
shown in Fig.6. It is possible caused by the asymmetry of the
two SCRs, which may have different voltage drops. Since for
a given set of SCR, the voltage drop difference is relatively
fixed. A larger current fluctuation will be generated when the
SCR is triggered by a larger firing angle; while a relatively
smaller current fluctuation will be generated when a smaller
firing angle is used. The difference was further enlarged by the
step-down welding transformer. In the RSW system, the times
can be 40-50. Hence, a small fluctuation in the current in the
primary side can be enlarged in the secondary side.
The experimental results of power factor calculation and
corresponding comparison against the experiment when the
firing angle was 117o are shown in Table I.
Table I. Experimental and simulation data of power factor (firing angle: 117o)
No

(/o)

1 (/o)

2 (/o)

(/o)

PF1

PF2

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

87.19
101.25
92.81
95.62
90.00
95.63
92.81
98.44
87.19
95.63
87.19
95.63

25.06
47.74
33.13
38.44
29.97
39.39
34.33
43.18
26.32
38.80
24.71
37.38

27.12
50.69
35.82
40.58
31.32
40.58
35.82
45.56
27.12
40.58
27.12
40.58

24.18
38.25
29.81
32.63
27.00
32.63
29.81
35.44
24.19
32.63
24.19
32.63

0.5683
0.4669
0.5527
0.5325
0.5644
0.5325
0.5527
0.5037
0.5683
0.5325
0.5683
0.5325

0.6202
0.5012
0.5846
0.5535
0.6064
0.5598
0.5818
0.5369
0.6048
0.5633
0.5980
0.5652

In the table, is the conduction angle obtained by online

measurement of zero-crossing of the welding current, 1 and
PF1 are the power factor angle and power factor obtained from
online calculation using DSP, while 2 and PF2 are the
corresponding data obtained from numerical simulations by
MALTAB. is obtained using equation (19).The maximum
absolute error between the power factor angle s using the
two methods was 3.20o (7.9%, in No.12), while the mean
absolute error was 2.03o(5.6%). However, the difference
between 2 and is quite large. The maximum absolute error
was 12.44o (24.5%, in No.2), while the mean absolute error
was 6.63o (17.1%). The experiment reconfirms that using the
phase lag angle to substitute the power factor angle would
cause a large error. Furthermore, this means that the proposed

Fig.7. RMS value of welding current (firing angle: 81o)

Table II shows the experimental results and corresponding

comparison in the second experiment when the firing angle
was 81o.
Table II. Experimental and simulation data of power factor (firing angle: 81o)
No

(/o)

1 (/o)

2 (/o)

(/o)

PF1

PF2

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

126.56
132.19
137.81
126.56
135.00
123.75
137.81
126.56

29.68
34.46
40.34
26.43
39.91
24.70
41.40
28.54

28.31
34.65
41.15
28.31
37.89
25.22
41.15
28.31

27.56
33.19
38.81
27.56
36.00
24.75
38.81
27.56

0.7423
0.6951
0.6522
0.7269
0.6646
0.7358
0.6431
0.7303

0.7024
0.6758
0.6333
0.7024
0.6568
0.7086
0.6338
0.7024

The structure and contents of Table II are the same as those of

Table I. In this experiment, the maximum absolute error
between the power factor angle s using two methods was
2.02o (5.3%, in No.5), while the mean absolute error was 0.91o
(2.9%). On the other hand, the maximum absolute error
between 2 and was 2.34o (5.7%, in No.3 and No.7), while
the mean absolute error between 2 and was 1.34o (3.8%).
The results indicate once more that the proposed algorithm can
also be used to obtain more accurate than using to denote
. Also, for the power factor measurement, the maximum
absolute error between PF1 and PF2 was 0.0399(5.7%, in
No.1), while the mean absolute error was 0.0219(3.2%). This
again shows that the power factor can be obtained online using
the proposed algorithm with a limited error under this
condition.
The above two experiments show that the proposed
algorithm can be used to obtain the power factor angle and
power factor with small errors compared with numerical
simulation, while the simulation results are assumed to be the
accurate values as shown in [5] and[12]. The power factor
angles obtained by the experiments are more accurate than
using the phase lag angle to denote it. approaches when
approaches . However, this occurs only when the welding
current is very large. In general, the difference between and
is large. In other words, the error of using phase lag angle

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to denote power factor angle will depend on the value of the

welding current. The second experiment used a small firing
angle and generated a large value of the welding current,
which nearly reached the upper bound value for the selected
workpiece. However, there was still a significant error when
using to denote .
On the other hand, as shown in Table I and Table II, the
proposed algorithm works consistently in different current
settings. The algorithm can achieve a satisfactory performance
over a very wide operation range, whether a high or low
welding current is used. Furthermore, results indicate that a
large welding current given a large value of KP. This is
because a larger welding current has less distortion in its shape
in comparing with a standard sinusoid wave.

V. CONCLUSION
Power factor is very important for safety operation,
analyzing the welding process and improving the system for
obtaining a satisfactory performance. Because the RSW
process is nonlinear and time-varying, existing measurement
methods cannot obtain the value of the power factor with a
high accuracy in real time, due to the fact that the power factor
angle and power factor cannot be represented explicitly by
measurable parameters. This work developed a new algorithm
which can online measure the power factor according to the
definition of power factor used for RSW. Since the power
factor and power factor angle can be expressed explicitly by
the measurable parameters using the proposed algorithm, they
can be easily obtained in real time. Hence, there is no need to
use either an offline database or an embedded ANN to
represent them. Experimental results confirmed that the
proposed algorithm can achieve satisfactory performance
compared with the results of numerical simulations, which
was used in former works. The robustness of the proposed
algorithm was verified by the use of different welding currents
and comparing the results with those obtained from the
approach of using the phase lag angle to denote the power
factor angle and the numerical simulation. It is possible that
the proposed algorithm for online measuring the power factor
can be extended to other systems with the same electrical
structure as AC RSW.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Research Grants
Council of Hong Kong, China for financial support for this
work (Project No: GRF 610611).

[1]

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Kang Zhou received his Bachelor and Master degrees in
the School of Automation from Northwestern
Polytechnical University, Xian, China in 2005 and 2008,
respectively, and PhD degree in Department of
Mechanical Engineering from Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China in 2013.
His research interests are in electrical engineering,
mechatronics and automatic control.

Lilong Cai (S88M90) received his B.Eng. degree in the

Department of Precision Instrumentation Engineering
from Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, in 1982 and PhD
degree in Department of Mechanical Engineering from
University of Toronto, Canada. From 1990 to 1993, he
was an Assistant Professor at the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York
City, USA. He has been with the Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology since 1993. Currently, he is Professor in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests are in the
control of nonlinear system, robotics, measurement, and mechatronics.

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