Safety Enhancement of Teleoperation using Haptic Control

Abstract

For safe remote control, information on remote environment has to be delivered to operator realistically, and there have been numerous research efforts on this respect. Among them, haptic technology can significantly enhance safety and overall effectiveness of remote operation by delivering various kinds of information on virtual or real environment to operator. In this study, remote control based on haptic feedback is applied to control of mobile robot moving according to the command from operator avoiding collision with environmental obstacles and maintaining safe distance from them using ultrasonic sensors. Specifically, a remote feedback control structure for mobile robot is proposed. The controller is based on the inner feedback loop that directly utilizes information on distance to obstacles, and the outer feedback loop that the operator directly commands using the haptic device on which the computed reaction force based on the distance information is acting. Effectiveness of the proposed remote control scheme using double feedback loops is verified through a series of experiments on mobile robot.