Applying Model Mediation Method to a Mobile Robot Bilateral Teleoperation System Experiencing Time Delays in Communication

Teleoperation systems consist of two subsystems namely, the master and the slave. Master is used by the human operator to send commands to the slave to achieve a task. In bilateral teleoperation, the interaction forces acquired from the slave sub-system is sent to the master to increase the level of tele-presence. In this kind of a setting, data has to be transferred through a communication line in which package losses and time delays occur. Such deficiencies in the communication line results in stability problems in the system. In this paper, HIPHAD desktop haptic device as the master sub-system and an omni-directional mobile robot as the slave subsystem is used to develop an unlimited workspace teleoperation system. The system’s stability and tracking performance under a constant time delay is measured for direct teleoperation and when model mediation method is applied to ensure stability. The results of the tests are given and the conclusions are derived.