Environment Parameter Estimation during Bilateral Telemanipulation

Accurate models of remote environments generated during telemanipulation can be used to improve transparency, generate realistic simulations, and evaluate environment state. This paper presents an architecture for environment parameter estimation during bilateral telemanipulation. Nonlinear stiffness and damping properties of the environment are estimated using an indirect adaptive control approach. The slave-environment contact force tracks the sum of the force applied by the human to the master and a persistent excitation force required for accurate environment parameter estimation. Since force feedback to the human operator should only reflect the environment properties, several methods for force feedback are considered. Simulations confirm the validity of the proposed telemanipulation architecture for obtaining reasonable estimates of nonlinear environment properties and providing appropriate force feedback to the operator.