A control scheme for stable force-reflecting teleoperation over IP networks

The problem of force-reflecting teleoperation over IP networks is addressed. The existence of time-varying communication delay and possibility of data packets dropouts are taken into consideration. Since significant data dropouts may result in discontinuity of the reference trajectory transmitted through the communication channel, the proposed control scheme includes a filter that provides a smooth approximation of a possibly discontinuous reference trajectory. The stability of the overall system is guaranteed by a version of the IOS small gain theorem for functional-differential equations. It is also shown that, in the case of reliable communication protocols, the proposed scheme guarantees that the slave manipulator tracks the delayed trajectory of the master with a prescribed small error.