Stability Of Discrete-Time Bilateral Teleoperation Control

Abstract—Discretization of a stabilizing continuous-time bilateral teleoperation controller for digital implementation may not necessarily lead to stable teleoperation. While previous research has focused on the question of passivity or stability of haptic interaction with a discretely-simulated virtual wall, this paper addresses the stability of master-slave teleoperation under discrete-time bilateral control. Stability regions are determined as a function of the sampling period, environment stiffness and control gains. Due to the tradeoff between stability and transparency in bilateral teleoperation, such stability boundaries are of particular importance when the teleoperation system is ideally transparent.