Identical-coordinate bilateral control for master-slave type power-assisted system

Recent years, the advanced robotic technologies are progressing, and the human motion support by robots is expected. For realizing the human motion support by robots, it is needed to consider the interaction among robots, humans, and unknown environment. Therefore in this paper, “physical extender,” “tool extender” and “environmental extender” are defined for human motion support. In this paper, “physical extender” and “tool extender” in real-world haptics are focused. In real-world haptics, robots can acquire human and environmental information simultaneously by using master and slave systems. Thus, the real-world haptics is suitable for supporting human motion. In this paper, the power-assisted system as “physical extender” and the pen system as “tool extender” are proposed based on the definition. The proposed systems have characteristics that a master and a slave systems are located closely in one device. For realizing these systems, an identical-coordinate bilateral control is constructed. By using the proposal, it is possible that the master and the slave are controlled to be located adjacently in the identical coordinate. Therefore, the master and the slave system move as if two systems are integrated into one device, and it is possible to realize “physical extender” and “tool extender.” In this paper, the identical-coordinate bilateral control for “physical extender” is constructed. The validity of the proposal is verified by experimental results.