Bilateral Control of a Velocity Control System Using Electric and Hydraulic Actuators

Abstract

Working in extreme environments (e.g., at disaster sites) is dangerous for humans. Hence, it is important to use teleoperated robots in such extreme environments. Because heavy lifting work is involved, hydraulic actuators with high output are more commonly used than electric actuators. Therefore, it is necessary to operate remotely controlled robots driven by hydraulic actuators. Bilateral control is remote control with a sense of force. Because most bilateral control systems have been studied mainly using electric actuators, bilateral control using hydraulic actuators is still a challenge. In this study, we propose placing a bilateral controller between an electric actuator on the master side and a hydraulic actuator on the slave side using position and velocity. The controller exhibits the dynamics of bilateral control systems using position and velocity. In addition, the control performance of conventional methods and that of the proposed method are compared and experimentally verified. C⃝ 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 194(1): 27-36, 2016; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).