Teleoperation of passivity-based model reference robust control over the internet

This dissertation offers a survey of a known theoretical approach and novel experimental results in establishing a live communication medium through the internet to host a virtual communication environment for use in Passivity-Based Model Reference Robust Control systems with delays. The controller which is used as a carrier to support a robust communication between input-to-state stability is designed as a control strategy that passively compensates for position errors that arise during contact tasks and strives to achieve delay-independent stability for controlling of aircrafts or other mobile objects. Furthermore the controller is used for nonlinear systems, coordination of multiple agents, bilateral teleoperation, and collision avoidance thus maintaining a communication link with an upper bound of constant delay is crucial for robustness and stability of the overall system. For utilizing such framework an elucidation can be formulated by preparing site survey for analyzing not only the geographical distances separating the nodes in which the teleoperation will occur but also the communication parameters that define the virtual topography that the data will travel through. This survey will first define the feasibility of the overall operation since the teleoperation will be used to sustain a delay based controller over the internet thus obtaining a hypothetical upper bound for the delay via site survey is crucial not only for the communication system but also the delay is required for the design of the passivity-based model reference robust control. Following delay calculation and measurement via site survey, bandwidth tests for unidirectional and bidirectional communication is inspected to ensure that the speed is viable to maintain a real-time connection. Furthermore from obtaining the results it becomes crucial to measure the consistency of the delay throughout a sampled period to guarantee that the upper bound is not breached at any point within the communication to jeopardize the robustness of the controller. Following delay analysis a geographical and topological overview of the communication is also briefly examined via a trace-route to understand the underlying nodes and their contribution to the delay and round-trip consistency. To accommodate the communication channel for the controller the input and output data from both nodes need to be encapsulated within a transmission control protocol via a multithreaded design of a robust program within the C language. The program will construct a multithreaded client-server relationship in which the control data is transmitted. For added stability and higher level of security the channel is then encapsulated via an internet protocol security by utilizing a protocol suite for protecting the communication by authentication and encrypting each packet of the session using negotiation of cryptographic keys during each session

Scaled bilateral teleoperation using discrete-time sliding mode controller

In this paper, the design of a discrete-time slidingmode controller based on Lyapunov theory is presented along with a robust disturbance observer and is applied to a piezostage for high-precision motion. A linear model of a piezostage was used with nominal parameters to compensate the disturbance acting on the system in order to achieve nanometer accuracy. The effectiveness of the controller and disturbance observer is validated in terms of closed-loop position performance for nanometer references. The control structure has been applied to a scaled bilateral structure for the custom-built telemicromanipulation setup. A piezoresistive atomic force microscope cantilever with a built-in Wheatstone bridge is utilized to achieve the nanonewtonlevel interaction forces between the piezoresistive probe tip and the environment. Experimental results are provided for the nanonewton-range force sensing, and good agreement between the experimental data and the theoretical estimates has been demonstrated. Force/position tracking and transparency between the master and the slave has been clearly demonstrated after necessary scalin

Novel observers for compensation of communication delay in bilateral control systems

The problem of communication delay in bilateral or teleoperation systems is even more emphasized with the use of the internet for communication, which may give rise to loss of transparency and even instability. To address the problem, numerous methods have been proposed. This study is among the few recent studies taking a disturbance observer approach to the problem of time delay, and introduces a novel sliding-mode observer to overcome specifically the effects of communication delay in the feedback loop. The observer operates in combination with a PD+ controller which controls the system dynamics, while also compensating load torque uncertainties on the slave side. To this aim, an EKF based load estimation algorithm is performed on the slave side. The performance of this approach is tested with computer simulations for the teleoperation of a 1-DOF robotic arm. The simulations reveal an acceptable amount of accuracy and transparency between the estimated slave and actual slave position under both constant and random measurement delay and variable and step-type load variations on the slave side, motivating the use of the approach for internet-based bilateral control systems

Sensors Allocation and Observer Design for Discrete Bilateral Teleoperation Systems with Multi-Rate Sampling

This study addresses sensor allocation by analyzing exponential stability for discrete-time teleoperation systems. Previous studies mostly concentrate on the continuous-time teleoperation systems and neglect the management of significant practical phenomena, such as data-swap, the effect of sampling rates of samplers, and refresh rates of actuators on the system’s stability. A multi-rate sampling approach is proposed in this study, given the isolation of the master and slave robots in teleoperation systems which may have different hardware restrictions. This architecture collects data through numerous sensors with various sampling rates, assuming that a continuous-time controller stabilizes a linear teleoperation system. The aim is to assign each position and velocity signals to sensors with different sampling rates and divide the state vector between sensors to guarantee the stability of the resulting multi-rate sampled-data teleoperation system. Sufficient Krasovskii-based conditions will be provided to preserve the exponential stability of the system. This problem will be transformed into a mixed-integer program with LMIs (linear matrix inequalities). These conditions are also used to design the observers for the multi-rate teleoperation systems whose estimation errors converge exponentially to the origin. The results are validated by numerical simulations which are useful in designing sensor networks for teleoperation systems

The Shape of Damping: Optimizing Damping Coefficients to Improve Transparency on Bilateral Telemanipulation

This thesis presents a novel optimization-based passivity control algorithm for hapticenabled bilateral teleoperation systems involving multiple degrees of freedom. In particular, in the context of energy-bounding control, the contribution focuses on the implementation of a passivity layer for an existing time-domain scheme, ensuring optimal transparency of the interaction along subsets of the environment space which are preponderant for the given task, while preserving the energy bounds required for passivity. The involved optimization problem is convex and amenable to real-time implementation. The effectiveness of the proposed design is validated via an experiment performed on a virtual teleoperated environment. The interplay between transparency and stability is a critical aspect in haptic-enabled bilateral teleoperation control. While it is important to present the user with the true impedance of the environment, destabilizing factors such as time delays, stiff environments, and a relaxed grasp on the master device may compromise the stability and safety of the system. Passivity has been exploited as one of the the main tools for providing sufficient conditions for stable teleoperation in several controller design approaches, such as the scattering algorithm, timedomain passivity control, energy bounding algorithm, and passive set position modulation. In this work it is presented an innovative energy-based approach, which builds upon existing time-domain passivity controllers, improving and extending their effectiveness and functionality. The set of damping coefficients are prioritized in each degree of freedom, the resulting transparency presents a realistic force feedback in comparison to the other directions. Thus, the prioritization takes effect using a quadratic programming algorithm to find the optimal values for the damping. Finally, the energy tanks approach on passivity control is a solution used to ensure stability in a system for robotics bilateral manipulation. The bilateral telemanipulation must maintain the principle of passivity in all moments to preserve the system\u2019s stability. This work presents a brief introduction to haptic devices as a master component on the telemanipulation chain; the end effector in the slave side is a representation of an interactive object within an environment having a force sensor as feedback signal. The whole interface is designed into a cross-platform framework named ROS, where the user interacts with the system. Experimental results are presented