User-centered force signal processing for internet-based telemanipulation: An overview

Abstract

In recent years, design and development of a practical force signal processing schemes which can be used for remote control of robotic devices over the Internet has gain a considerable attention. Traditionally, various local closed-loop control methodologies were proposed based on the two-port network architecture. Main concerns for this type of bi-lateral telemanipulation have been the stable tracking of the transmitted force and position signals. As such, assumptions have been made in regard to no loss of the transmitted information and existence of a fixed time delay between the master robot and the slave environment. However, connectivity through Internet introduces variable time delays with added lost of information. Not until recently, most of the proposed control methodologies have ignored taking advantage of the nature of the Internet protocols and its associated signal processing. For example, the limits of human tactile/force perception on distinguishing temporal changes in force signal can introduce a feasible and practical constraint which can be incorporated in the framework of single processing and in the data communication transport. This paper presents an overview of the literature on user-centered Internet-based tele-operation and proposes a force signal processing framework which can be utilized in such implementation.