Single-Leader-Dual-Follower Teleoperation in Object-Holding Task with Internal Force Regulation

Abstract

Robot teleoperation attracts growing attention of researchers in many domains. Plenty of factors contribute to the good performance of a smart teleoperation system, and one crucial factor is that it provides an environmental feedback for the operator. Hence, in this paper, we offer a solution to help operator to perceive the contact force of the tele-robot. In addition, we introduce a strategy to cooperatively teleoperate two follower robots by using only single leader <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> robot, which helps to reduce the control burden for the operator, as well as enables the teleoperation system to avoid the problem caused by the mismatched degree of freedom (DoF). Moreover, an impedance model based technique is employed to regulate the holding internal force during object-holding tasks. Experiments are conducted gradually, using a Touch X device as the leader robot and two arms of the Baxter robot as the tele-robots. Experimental results validate the feasibility of the proposed teleoperation system.