Master-Slave Teleoperation with Force Feedback in Hazardous Environment

Intelligent and precise robotic systems are becoming essential for operating in harsh environments. In order to increase safety and machine availability, robots can perform repetitive, unplanned and dangerous tasks, which humans either prefer to avoid or are unable to carry out due to hazards, size constraints, or the extreme environments in which they take place. A novel user-friendly system consisting of robotic arms that can be operated by using other robotic arms as controllers, is presented in my thesis. The system is equipped with force-feedback based haptic devices and uses high-precision gravity compensation algorithms to increase the stability during the robotic operations. The force-feedback is realized through the utilization of impedance control and to ensure the safety of the operator, the force is exerted through virtual springs. Experiments to tune the force-feedback to the operator have been implemented, as well as custom end-effector, designed specifically for teleoperation.