Bilateral control considering transition of subsystems based on ability to oppose the thumb

As an academic field which deals with transmission and reproduction of human tactile information, there exists real-world haptics. Bilateral control is an important technology of real-world haptics to transmit tactile information between operators and environment. It is desirable for master or slave systems to work autonomously in order to adapt themselves for motions of operator or environment. In addition, varying the number of driven systems contributes energy conservation and wastes reduction according to change of connection between subsystems. In this paper, a bilateral control system is proposed which realize adaptability to environmental variation of motion and energy conservation by varying system configurations. The variance of system configurations is derived from expression of human fingers as a dynamic model of informationally connected system based on ability to oppos the thumb. ability to oppos the thumb is a necessary function of human fingers and an element which makes the connection vary dynamically. The model is applied to three-fingered bilateral control system. By using proposed method, flexibility to variation of environmental movement and higher concentration to the main tasks and energy conservation are obtained for the bilateral teleoperation. Experimental results show validity of the proposed method.