Stability Analysis for Bilateral Teleoperation: An IQC Formulation

We present the stability analysis of uncertain bilateral teleoperation systems and numerical test cases via a formulation in terms of integral quadratic constraints. Frequently used robust stability conditions originating from network theory in the face of passive human and environment operators are shown to be particular cases in this framework. This allows us to subsume seemingly different frequency-domain methods to one formulation. Using this unified approach, different uncertainty classes can be incorporated into the stability test simultaneously. A few commonly encountered uncertainty types and the corresponding stability analysis tests are derived and numerically illustrated for a simple teleoperation system. These numerical examples highlight the need for a refined modeling of the human and the environment in teleoperation systems.