Stable teleoperation with communication unreliabilities and approximate human/environment dynamics knowledge

This paper introduces a novel control approach for teleoperation systems to achieve finite gain ℒ₂-stability under communication unreliabilities. It is assumed that the communication block satisfies a small gain condition, as for example constant time delay and properly handled packet loss do. The proposed approach, a generalization of the scattering transformation, takes advantage of dissipative properties of human arm, environment, and/or manipulator dynamics. It is shown that transparency can be substantially improved compared to the conventional scattering transformation approach. Simulations and experimental results validate the proposed approach.