Position follow-up control for hand delivery of object between moving robot arms of remote robot systems with force feedback

Abstract

In this paper, we propose position follow-up control for dealing with hand delivery of an object between moving robot arms of remote robot systems with force feedback, and we investigate the effect of the control by experiment. We also examine influences of the network delay on the hand delivery of the object under the control. In each system, a user can operate the moving robot arm having a force sensor by using a haptic interface device while watching video. An electric hand which can hold the object is attached to the tip of the robot arm. In the position follow-up control, the position of one robot arm is automatically moved close to the other moving robot arm, and then smooth hand delivery is realized in combination with manual operation. In the experiment, we make a comparison between the case in which the position follow-up control is carried out and the case in which the control is not performed. Experimental results show that the average operation time is greatly decreased under the control, and the average operation time increases as the network delay becomes larger.