Stability analysis of force reflecting telerobotic systems

In the paper we aim to enhance the understanding of the effects of system properties, most notably the role of slave damping, on the performance of force reflecting teleoperators. Building on work by Daniel and McAree we argue that if a slave manipulator is critically damped then system performance, as measured by the maximum achievable force reflection ratio, becomes independent of the mass and stiffness of the operator. We give some experimental results in support of this