Haptic Tele-Driving of Wheeled Mobile Robot with Communication Delay

We propose a novel passivity-enforcing tele-driving control framework, which will enable a human operator to stably tele-control a unicycle-type wheeled mobile robot (WMR) over communication network with constant delays while having some useful haptic force-feedback. We consider both the case of kinematic and dynamic WMRs. Our main objective is to enable human users to tele-drive the WMR as they drive a car, arguably the most efficient human-interface for controlling WMRs: i.e. two degree-of-freedoms of a (nonlinear) master device are respectively used to control the forward velocity and the heading angle of the WMR, much like as the gaspedal and the steering-wheel of a car. We also enforce passivity of the closed-loop system, so that the interaction of the tele-driving system can be stable for a wide range of human users and slave environments even with communication delays. Experiment is performed to show the efficacy of the proposed control frameworks.