Towards force-reflecting teleoperation over the Internet

This paper extends earlier results on stable force reflecting teleoperation in the presence of significant time-delays to the case, frequent in practice, where the transmission delays are themselves varying with time in an unpredictable fashion. It shows that stability can be preserved through the systematic use of specially designed wave-variable filters. The resulting performance of the teleoperation system is illustrated in simulations, and is consistent with reasonable expectations on "ideal" behavior. The results may provide a practical tool for implementing force-reflecting teleoperation over the Internet.