Haptic Telerobotic Control Systems: Analysis and Design for High-Fidelity Interaction

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Haptic feedback provides the humans who operate machines (e.g., planes, excavators, or robots such as the Canadarm or Mars rovers) with a sense of touching objects they are not actually touching by hand but are manipulating by the machines. To recreate for the sense of touch what closed-circuit TV recreates for the sense of sight, haptic feedback produces the illusion of touching the objects by applying forces to the human operator hands through user interfaces (joysticks). This is a useful capability because haptic interaction is the human’s most basic way to understanding an environment and effecting change in it. Haptic feedback allows the human operator of the machine to handle objects more gently, safely, reliably, and precisely. This is of paramount importance if the “machine” is a surgical or rehabilitation robot and the manipulated “object” is the soft tissue or disabled limb of a patient while a surgeon or therapist acts as the machine “operator”.This proposal concerns enhancing the quality (“fidelity” or “transparency”) of haptic interaction, which is critical to the safety and successful execution of various manipulation and sensing tasks, for machines called “teleoperation systems”. In a haptic teleoperation system, a human operator controls a robot via a user interface in order to handle and “feel” objects potentially located at a remote distance (equivalent to broadcast TV in the above analogy). Teleoperation systems are useful machines when a human has to interact with a hazardous environment (e.g., undersea or toxic fields) or an inaccessible/remote environment (e.g., outer space). Undersea teleoperation for monitoring oil and gas pipelines and the inspection of subsea structures eliminates the high cost of human divers and the risk to life. Teleoperation for nuclear waste handling or mine clearance minimizes the risk to life. Space teleoperation minimizes the number of expensive manned missions required for equipment assembly, servicing and repair. In such applications, bilateral teleoperation (i.e., with haptic feedback for the operator) is preferable over unilateral teleoperation (i.e., without haptic feedback).In the proposed research, we will focus on teleoperation systems for surgery and rehabilitation although the research outcomes are applicable broadly. Our proposed research on surgical teleoperation enables surgery on the beating heart in the presence of haptic feedback for the surgeon so that he/she does not apply too much force on the heart tissue. Teleoperation can facilitate in-home telerehabilitation as an alternative to hospital-based rehabilitation of physically disabled patients. In this context, our proposed research will enable time-sharing of one therapist among several patients so that the therapist can shift his/her attention from one patient to another as teleoperated robots at the patients’ homes learn to continue the therapies safely in the absence of the therapist. The proposed research will also answer how two or more humans or human hands can haptically collaborate in controlling the same machine such that execution of a given task takes place more easily or optimally. For instance, we will investigate how an assistive robotic arm mounted on a power wheelchair can be collaboratively teleoperated from two joysticks held by a disabled person’s two hands, which may have limited but complementary motions. While useful in many application areas, the proposed research leads to important enabling biomedical engineering technologies. In addition to the groundbreaking innovations, this research will benefit Canada by training students in areas pertaining to the development of advanced haptic technologies including robotics, human-machine interaction, and systems control.