Environmental Force Reflection In An Admittance Configured Haptic Interface For Teleoperation Of VTOL Aerial Robots

This paper presents a novel bilateral teleoperation system architecture using an admittance configured haptic interface for environmental force reflection in mobile robot teleoperation tasks. By changing the feedback point of environmental forces in a two-channel teleoperation system architecture, the proposed approach enables the environmental force reflection in an admittance configured haptic interface, which allows the commonest force based environment perception and obstacle avoidance algorithms to be implemented in the admittance configured haptic interfaces leading to users’ better perception of both vehicle's motion and environmental forces. Under the new system architecture, human operators can perceive vehicle's dynamic motion in free flight, or simultaneously both the dynamic motion and environmental forces in obstacle strewn environments, which can not be achieved by the classical admittance or impedance configured haptic interface. In addition, the novel approach is also capable of facilitating obstacle avoidance without inducing potential instability as other force based obstacle avoidance algorithms may do. Analysis on transparency and stability were conducted based on the previously developed teleoperation system. Both simulation and experimental study were undertaken to verify the effectiveness and performance of the proposed scheme using a haptic joystick. The outcomes of simulation and experiments confirm the authors’ claims that the proposed approach provides intuitive perception of vehicle's motion and environmental forces, as well as facilitates navigation and obstacle avoidance in the mobile robot bilateral teleoperation system.