Incorporating human haptic interaction models into teleoperation systems

A classification of model-mediated teleoperation systems according to the model type and its application is introduced. While models of the human operator estimating position trajectories have been already applied in teleoperation, in the present paper, we propose the incorporation of force-based human haptic interaction models. This new approach allows to transfer the strength of advanced model-mediated teleoperation, i.e. increased stability and fidelity, to scenarios where forces applied to the remote environment are of importance. As an application example we present a tele-rehabilitation scenario which was implemented on a 1 DoF teleoperation system. Position and force fusion algorithms integrating human haptic interaction models are defined for time delay and packet loss compensation. The results demonstrate clearly the benefit of incorporating force-based human haptic interaction models into teleoperation systems.