Trilateral Teleoperation of a Hexapod Robot Based on Wave Variable Compensation and Dynamic Shared Control

Abstract

This article proposes a trilateral teleoperation system integrating an experienced trainer with trainees to enhance trainee skill acquisition. At the same time, conventional trilateral teleoperation systems often have fixed weighting factors, rendering them susceptible to complex environments and changes in operator proficiency. Therefore, we propose a dynamic weighting factor switching algorithm based on velocity tracking error that adjusts the teleoperation authority by comparing the expected velocity of the leader robots with the actual velocity of the follower robot. To address communication delays, the wave variable compensation item in the system teleoperator is designed to eliminate the nonpassivity originating from the communication channel and the environmental terminal. Subsequently, a time-domain passivity controller is employed to establish a unified energy function for the system’s environment terminal, mitigating the detrimental effects of nonpassivity on system transparency and stability. Finally, the method’s effectiveness and system’s performance are validated through semi-physical simulation and physical experiments. Experimental results demonstrate reductions compared to traditional bilateral teleoperation: linear velocity error by 33.8%, angular velocity error by 46%, and force tracking error by 48%.