Performance comparison of Wave Variable Transformation and Time Domain Passivity Approaches for time-delayed teleoperation: Preliminary results

This paper presents initial results of a set of experiments to compare time-delayed teleoperation performance of selected architectures based on two popular passivity based methods, namely, Wave Variables Transformation (WVT) and Time Domain Passivity Approach (TDPA). Five different architectures widely used and available in literature are selected: 2-channel and 3-channel for both WV and TDPA, and 4-channel based on TDPA. An empirical approach for measuring transparency is proposed, which presents three main qualities: 1) Controller independency 2) Frequency dependency of performance and 3) Removal of the human operator out of the loop. In order to achieve this, the human operator is replaced by a linear actuator equipped with a force sensor. Deterministic interactions between the simulated operator and the rest of the system can thus be easily implemented and registered. Therefore, this approach allows to isolate pure effects of any control method and perform a proper analysis in terms of selected attributes for a desired metrics. In this article, these are chosen to be effective impedance and position tracking error, both in the frequency domain. In addition to the quantitative results, a qualitative analysis is presented which underlines practical implications of each architecture and control method. The comparison sample presented contains five different delays, varying from 0 to 200 milliseconds, five different environmental impedances and 5 bilateral control architectures along with an analysis of the results obtained.