Fuzzy-Observer-Based Hybrid Force/Position Control Design for a Multiple-Sampling-Rate Bimanual Teleoperation System

In this paper, a novel fuzzy-observer-based hybrid force/position control method is investigated for a bimanual teleoperation system in the presence of dynamics uncertainties, random network-induced time delays, and multiple sampling rates of remote control signals and local measured data. The system structure consists of two pairs of position observers and contact force/torque estimators. The position observers are designed based on Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy inference rules to estimate the delayed remote state with low sampling rates. The force/torque estimators are designed for estimating the coupled item of uncertain dynamics and contact forces without acceleration information. By adding a compensatory item based on an auxiliary model, the force estimation and motion-tracking errors caused by varying dynamics uncertainties decrease, which is certified by two comparative force estimation techniques. The stability condition for the closed-loop system is also proved by the linear matrix inequality method based on the Lyapunov function. Finally, two simulations verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results indicate that the proposed method enables a better motion synchronization effect in soft-handling environment.