Design of bilateral teleoperation controllers for haptic exploration and telemanipulation of soft environments

In this letter, teleoperation controller design for haptic exploration and telemanipulation of soft environments is studied. First, a new measure for fidelity in teleoperation is introduced which quantifies the teleoperation system's ability to transmit changes in the compliance of the environment. This sensitivity function is appropriate for the application of telesurgery, where the ability to distinguish small changes in tissue compliance is essential for tasks such as detection of embedded vessels. The bilateral teleoperation controller design problem is then formulated in a task-based optimization framework as the optimization of this metric, with constraints on free-space tracking and robust stability of the system under environment and human operator uncertainties. The control design procedure is illustrated with a case study. The analysis is also used to evaluate the effectiveness of using a force sensor in a teleoperation system.