Bilateral teleoperation of a pneumatic actuator: experiment and stability analysis

Abstract

This paper presents design, implementation and stability analysis of a bilateral teleoperated pneumatic actuation system whereby a low-cost pneumatic actuator is navigated by an operator using a commercially-available haptic device. The actuator is subject to an external force, the value of which is scaled and rendered on the haptic device to provide the operator with a feeling of the interaction at the remote site. Sliding mode control scheme is implemented for positioning the pneumatic actuator. The performance of the system is experimentally evaluated through several experiments including interaction with springs having different stiffnesses and an arbitrary resistive/assistive force applied by a human at the actuator side. Stability of the entire system is theoretically proven using the concept of Lyapunov exponents that quantitatively measures convergence/divergence of initially infinitely close solution trajectories.