• Bilateral Teleoperation
• EMG
• Impedance Control
• Teleimpedance
• Telerobotics

The position-force (PF) architecture is widely used in telerobotic systems due to its simplicity and performance among two-channel architectures. However, it is highly susceptible to instability, especially with communication delays. In this context, tele-impedance aims to maintain performance during interaction with the environment, enabling the robot to adapt to the environmental conditions based on the stiffness with which the operator intends to perform the task. However, the teleimpedance control bypasses the stability issue by excluding force feedback.
This thesis proposes applying the tele-impedance control paradigm within PF architectures to improve usability while retaining the benefits of force feedback. A specially designed force sensor estimates the operator's arm mechanical impedance in real-time at the haptic interface grip point and transmits it to the teleoperated robot. The traditional PD controller is replaced by a Cartesian impedance controller, allowing direct mapping of the received impedance. The instability issue is addressed using the time domain passivity approach. The proposed method was experimentally validated by comparing its performance against a PD control during a remote peg-in-hole task with 100 ms communication round trip delay. The results showed an improvement in the success rate of task completion and a reduction in the energy required to be dissipated, leading to a decrease in force and position drift.