Network-based force-reflecting teleoperation

Force-reflection is significantly important in complex teleoperations. This study aims to develop a practical force-reflecting teleoperator through the Internet, and supposes the time delay in the order of several hundred milliseconds. Since the transmission delays existing in network vary rapidly and possibly randomly, it is very difficult to ensure the stability. Accordingly, in this paper, the time-varying controllers, which are adjusted to the round trip time delay observed online are designed based on the framework of the H_∞ gain-scheduling. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by experiments of the bilateral teleoperation through the Internet