Abstract :
Current robotic teleoperation systems have very limited haptic feedback. This omission is related to many different factors, including the negative effect that haptic feedback has on the stability of these systems. In this respect, cutaneous feedback has recently received great attention; delivering ungrounded sensory cues to the operator´s skin conveys rich information and does not affect the stability of teleoperation systems. This work addresses the challenge of providing effective cutaneous feedback in robotic teleoperation, with the objective of achieving the highest degree of transparency while guaranteeing the stability of the considered systems. On the one hand, it evaluates teleoperation systems that provide only cutaneous cues to the operator, thus guaranteeing the highest degree of safety. On the other hand, in order to achieve higher level of performance, it also investigate novel force feedback systems for teleoperation able to provide mixed cutaneous and kinesthetic cues to the operator.
