Development of an Open Experimental Apparatus for the Comparison of Haptic Teleoperation Control Systems

Despite the considerable scientific interest and the many potential uses, several important limitations concur in holding back the widespread adoption of haptic teleoperation technology. The main obstacles are the unreliability of the required telecommunication system, the difficulty in modelling the human operator and the interaction with the remote environment, and the stringent performance and stability requirements induced by the often safety-critical character of the application. As the current literature appears to be lacking in careful comparisons of competing implementations of haptic teleoperation systems, this work details the development of an experimental setup meant to enable this kind of research. Some preliminary results, concerning the comparison of an admittance-based force controller with an impedance-based one are also shown, highlighting the respective strengths and weaknesses of the two regulators.