Stable teleoperation with time domain passivity control

A new bilateral control scheme is proposed to ensure stable teleoperation under a wide variety of operating conditions. To guarantee the stability of a teleoperation system, a previously proposed energy-based method is extended to a two-port network. The issues in implementing the "passivity observer" and "passivity controller" to teleoperation systems are studied. The method is tested with our two-DOF master/slave teleoperation system. Totally stable teleoperation is achieved under conditions such as hard wall contact (stiffness>150 kN/m) and hard surface following.