Passive Feedforward Approach to Bilateral Teleoperated Manipulators

A control scheme for linear dynamically similar bilateral teleoperated manipulator system which ensures that the closed loop system is energetically passive is proposed. Energetic passivity implies that the teleoperated manipulator system is safe to interact with, and that the coupling between the system and any strictly passive environment is stable. The control objective is for the two manipulators in the system to behave in unison under the influence of both the operator and the work environment, while maintaining energetic passivity. The dynamics of the system in unison and its response to the operator and work environment can be specified as kinematic and power scalings. To maintain energetic passivity with feedback and feedforward actions, the proposed control makes use of two fictitious internal energy storages. The result is that when the internal state of the storage elements are suitably initialized, the teleoperated manipulator system achieves asymptotic locking even in the presence of external (bounded) forcing from the operator and work environment.