Model-reference model-mediated control for time-delayed teleoperation systems

Time delays in bilateral teleoperation systems can degrade the transparency and result in instability. For large delays, model predictive control or impedance reflective methods in which the operator interacts with the slave and environment model, can help overcome this issue. An important key to the success of these systems is to have the local virtual slave model synchronized with the slave. This is especially important when the slave gets into contact with hard environments, resulting in rapid contact force build up and slave chattering. In this paper, we propose a model-reference model-mediated teleoperation control architecture that provides enhanced synchronization between the slave and virtual slave models and keeps both the master and slave responsive. The proposed architecture is evaluated against through simulations and experiments carried out on a 1-DOF master-slave testbed.