A synchronization method of visual and tactile senses for bilateral teleoperation over network

Abstract

In bilateral teleoperation, the human operator manipulates the master robot while watching video images that are sent from the slave side. Live video streaming causes a significant communication delay to the system. However, a conventional definition of transparency for bilateral control does not consider this delay. In this paper, a novel definition of transparency is proposed. If perfect transparency is achieved, the visual sense and tactile sense synchronize. This transparency is nearly achieved by applying a compliance control to the slave controller. By using this structure, the slave robot contacts the environment safely even if there exist communication delay between the master side and the slave side. In addition, the visual sense and tactile sense synchronize. The validity of the proposed method is shown by numerical and experimental results. © 2009 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.