Control design for bilateral teleoperation system with actuator dead-zone and time-varying delays

Abstract

This paper investigates the control design of a bilateral teleoperation system with input dead-zone, dynamic uncertainties, external disturbances and time-varying delay. Our objective is to achieve a robust bilateral teleoperation with guaranteed position asymptotic convergence. This is accomplished using an efficient backstepping approach combined with nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control (NFTSMC) where the uncertain dynamics of the system are identified using radial basis function neural network (RBFNN). The upper-bounds of the external disturbances together with the RBFNN approximation errors are estimated and compensated online using adaptation algorithms. Computer simulations are provided to demonstrate the viability of the proposed control law.