Haptic Telemanipulation with Impedance Control and Its Application in Homecare Robotics

Telemanipulation concerns manual operation of a device from a remote location through suitable communication links. In haptics, the communication link is two-way with force feedback from the manipulated object to the human operator. This paper presents a new application of telemanipulation, as used in homecare robotics. For the specific application, a telemanipulation scheme with impedance control at both ends of the communication link—object interface (slave end) and human interface (master end)—is investigated. On the master side, impedance with damping is tuned with the environmental impedance to reduce the energy input by the operator. On the slave side, an adaptive impedance controllers based on estimation of the dynamics at the telemanipulated object interface is suggested. The proposed impedance controllers can guarantee desired force tracking in one direction. Simulation results show the applicability of the control strategy.