Bilateral control of master-slave manipulators for ideal kinesthetic coupling--formulation and experiment

In this paper, the analysis and design of master-slave teleoperation systems are discussed. The goal of this paper is to build a superior master-slave system that can provide good maneuverability. We first analyze a one degree-of-freedom system including operator and object dynamics. Second, some ideal responses of master-slave systems are defined and a quantitative index of maneuverability is given, based on the concept of ideal responses. Third, we propose new control schemes of master-slave manipulators that provide the ideal kinesthetic coupling such that the operator can maneuver the system as though he/she were directly manipulating the remote object himself/herself. The proposed control scheme requires accurate dynamic models of the master and slave arms, but neither parameters of the remote object nor the operator dynamics is necessary. Last, the proposed control scheme is introduced to a prototype master-slave system and the experimental results show the validity of the proposed scheme.