Bilateral Control interacting with a Virtual Model and Environment

Bilateral control enables the operator to be placed away from the working environment. Slave manipulator usually works in a remote site or in a hazardous environment. Master operator is sensing the environment through the slave manipulator. Usually if scaling is not used, master operator could feel the slave environment as it is. If the master operator should feel a feeling other than that is coming from the slave, a virtual model can be used to modify the feeling. Even though this concept can be used in many industrial applications, bilateral forceps robot is used to prove its applicability. If bilateral control is used in a surgery, ideally doctor should feel the feeling of the body tissue and the reaction force from the specialized tool. Virtual spring acting at the end of the forceps is implemented to the bilateral control so that operator at the master side could feel the spring feeling together with the environment. Reaction torque observer is used as the method of measuring the reaction force. Virtual model is inserted in-between the disturbance observer inputs so that the virtual model together with the environment is reflected in the output of the reaction torque observer.