Stability analysis of non-time referenced Internet-based telerobotic systems

This paper explores a new method for action synchronization and control of telerobotic systems. The significance of the method is that it can effectiv ely deal with the random time delay existing in the communication channel, such as the Internet. In addition, the result is independent of human opera tor. First, a novel non-time referenced action control scheme will be intro duced. Instead of using time as an action reference, a new sensor-based act ion reference will be developed. As a result, the communication delay will have little impact on the operations, in particular the stability of the sy stem. Furthermore the stability of the system is not dependent on the model of the human operator in the system. All these will lead to the developmen t of the theoretical foundation on the stability of robotic systems involvi ng human operators. The implementations and experimental outcomes presented herein will verify the theoretical results. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.