Design and control of a two-dimensional telerobotic system with a haptic interface

A model for a 'master-slave' two-dimensional telerobotic dynamic system with a haptic interface device is derived. The telerobotic system consists of a 'master' robot, which is a direct-drive robot operated by a human arm, and a 'slave' robot, which is an x-y type pallet located at a remote site. When the active handle of the master is moved along an arbitrary trajectory, the remote slave duplicates the motion in a constrained or unconstrained environment. The behaviour of the environment is felt by the operator through the active handle of the master. This is achieved by feeding back the disturbance and reaction forces from the environment and the loads to the active handle. Consequently, the operator gets a feel of the task being performed without being physically at the location of the task. A control scheme is devised for the telerobotic system to establish smooth communication between the master and slave robots. This control scheme integrates the dynamics of the human arm, actuators and the environment in the closed-loop system. It was shown that the experimental and the theoretical results are in good agreement and that the design controller is robust to constrained/unconstrained environments.