Stability and performance analysis of three-channel teleoperation control architectures for medical applications

Tele-surgery has been more and more popular in robotassisted medical intervention. Most existing teleoperation architectures for medical applications adopt 2-channel architectures. The 2-channel architectures have been evaluated in literature and it is shown that some architectures, e.g. position-force (P-F), are able to provide the surgeon a reliable haptic sense of the working environment (transparency). However, stability of these P-F architecture is still a considerable concern especially when physiological disturbances exist in the remote environment. P-PF architecture is proved to provide a convenient alternative. With one more channel 3-channel teleoperation architectures present promising options due to their augmented design flexibility. This paper evaluates stability and transparency of general 3-channel bilateral teleoperation control architectures and provides a design framework guidelines to improve the architectures' stability robustness and optimize the transparency. Simulation evaluations are provided to illustrate how the optimal 3-channel teleoperation architecture is chosen for medical applications given their dedicated requirements.