Transparency and Stability Robustness in Two-Channel Bilateral Telemanipulation

This paper presents a two-channel architecture and design approach that enables a simultaneous increase in the transparency and stability robustness of a bilateral teleoperation system, and additionally provides a high degree of transparency robustness to uncertainty in the operator and environment dynamics. The former is provided by the use of a loop-shaping filter incorporated on the master-to-slave motion command, and the latter by local feedback loops around both the master and slave manipulators. The proposed architecture and design approach are illustrated on a single-degree-of-freedom example with and without a communication channel time delay. Finally, the implications of scaling on the stability of the teleoperator loop are discussed.