Abstract: In view of problems such as excessive labor intensity, serious environmental pollution and low conductivity of manual welding in traditional electrolytic aluminum prebaked anode conductive device, the first 5 000 kN aluminum guide rod friction welding equipment and 4 000 kN cast steel claw friction welding equipment were innovatively developed in domestic and put into actual production. Involving automatic control design category, challenges faced by two sets of equipment in the development process were emphatically analyzed, such as characteristics of large inertia and large cross-section of welded parts, as well as requirements for small phase control errors, high-speed output accuracy of friction welding process, and fast data acquisition rates. Through scientific design, friction welding equipment could quickly, accurately collect input signals. In the meantime, it relied on construction of efficient control strategy to achieve real-time and precision control results, which met requirements of system stability and human-machine interaction quality, as well as speed, position, pressure, safety and other control parameters during the processing of large cross-section of same or different metals, and then met high requirements of friction welding process on quality and repeatability of processed welds. Because it could provide accurate data for welding process research, and then provide scientific path for pursuing the best joint quality. At present, due to limited basic theories and practical applications for large cross-section friction welding joints of same or dissimilar metals under conditions of thermal aging, thermal cycling and current load, research achievements of related equipment had a positive effect on integration of welding and control. Development trends of such equipment and automatic control systems were looked forward.