Fine Manipulation and Dynamic Interaction in Haptic Teleoperation

TL;DR

This paper enhances haptic teleoperation by integrating postural optimization with a fractal impedance controller, improving robustness, safety, and dynamic interaction under communication delays and interruptions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel postural optimization method into FIC-based teleoperation, balancing tracking accuracy and physical limitations for safer, more robust remote manipulation.

Findings

Robustness to increased communication delays

Stable and safe interaction during communication interruptions

Improved dynamic interaction through power-aware control

Abstract

The teleoperation of robots enables remote intervention in distant and dangerous tasks without putting the operator in harm's way. However, remote operation faces fundamental challenges due to limits in communication delays. The proposed work improves the performances of teleoperation architecture based on Fractal Impedance Controller (FIC) by integrating into the haptic teleoperation pipeline a postural optimisation that also accounts for the replica robots' physical limitations. This update improves dynamic interactions by trading off tracking accuracy to maintain the system within its power limits. Thus, allowing fine manipulation without renouncing the robustness of the FIC controller. Additionally, the proposed method allows an online trade-off between tracking the autonomous trajectory and executing the teleoperated command, allowing their safe superimposition. The validated experimental results show that the proposed method is robust to increased communication delays. Moreover, we demonstrated that the remote teleoperated robot remains stable and safe to interact with, even when the communication with the master side is abruptly interrupted. with, even when the communication with the master side is abruptly interrupted.