On the bilateral control of teleoperators with flexible joints and time delay by the passive approach

Describes a new method to synthesize a ´generalized bilateral master-slave system´. It uses two criteria: transparency distance and passivity distance. This method relies on the passivity concept and extends the previous results, in particular, taking into account the facts that: (i) manipulators have flexible joints, and (ii) the control system can suffer from time delays. The authors use the passivity distance proposed by J.T. Wen (1988) in order to deal with the paradigm of manipulators with flexible joints. They then analyse the R. Anderson´s algorithm for overcoming the instability induced by time delays, and discuss its benefits as well as the trade-off between stability and performance. They deduce from that a fundamental limitation when applied to teleoperators with kinesthetic feedback.<>