The robotic welding has been adapted positively in many welding shops forthe purpose of improving the welding efficiency and liberating operators from the severe working atmosphere. But for a large-size structure with thick plates like ship-building and every kind of plants manufacturing, the application of the arc welding robots is not established yet. The reason is assumed that the conventional arc welding robots are not adaptive for multi-pass welding of thick plates whose grooves are not so accurate. As one solution to this problem, a guidance system which uses the welding arc itself as a sensor is largely used. In this study the velocity controller which changes the tip to workpiece distance for regulating the weld proposed. The proportional and integral gain of velocity controller were determined by using the computer simulation of the control system, and the simulation results compared with the experimental ones. It was revealed that the developed control system using the arc sensor principle has a good capability of tracking the weld joint, although some more studies will be needed to refine the model of arc current.