Passive Bilateral Teleoperation with Bounded Control Signals

In this study a new approach is proposed for time domain passivity based control of bilateral teleoperation systems in the presence of communication delay. According to the time domain passivity framework a Passivity Observer monitors the behavior of the teleoperation system. Whenever it is necessary, a Passivity Controller is switched on to assure the passivity of the teleoperation system. In this work a method is introduced according to which the rate (first order derivate) of the velocity and force signals, which are sent through the communication network, are limited with known bounds. In this case Passivity Controllers with bounded outputs can guarantee the stable behavior of the teleoperation system. Real-time experimental measurements are provided to show the efficiency of the proposed technique.