Bilateral Telemanipulation With Time Delays: A Two-Layer Approach Combining Passivity and Transparency

• Published in: IEEE transactions on robotics Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 741 - 756
• Main Authors: Franken, M., Stramigioli, S., Misra, S., Secchi, C., Macchelli, A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.08.2011; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Bilateral control; Channels; Communication channels; Computer science; control theory; systems; Control systems; Control theory. Systems; Controllers; Delay; Delay effects; Energy exchange; Exact sciences and technology; Exchanging; Force; Friction; Optimization; Passivity; Robotics; Robots; stability; Strategy; telemanipulation; Time delay; transparency; Gripping; Transparency; Remote operation; Transmission channel; Relaxed control; Bilateral; Master slave relationship; time delay; telemanipulation; Passivity; Transmission time; Optimization; Time varying system; Bilateral control; Delay time; stability
• ISSN: 1552-3098; 1941-0468
• DOI: 10.1109/TRO.2011.2142430

In this paper, a two-layer approach is presented to guarantee the stable behavior of bilateral telemanipulation systems in the presence of time-varying destabilizing factors such as hard contacts, relaxed user grasps, stiff control settings, and/or communication delays. The approach splits the control architecture into two separate layers. The hierarchical top layer is used to implement a strategy that addresses the desired transparency, and the lower layer ensures that no "virtual" energy is generated. This means that any bilateral controller can be implemented in a passive manner. Separate communication channels connect the layers at the slave and master sides so that information related to exchanged energy is completely separated from information about the desired behavior. Furthermore, the proposed implementation does not depend on any type of assumption about the time delay in the communication channel. By complete separation of the properties of passivity and transparency, each layer can accommodate any number of different implementations that allow for almost independent optimization. Experimental results are presented, which highlight the benefit of the proposed framework.