Usability is one of the most important aspects of teleoperation. Ideally, the operator’s experience should be one of complete command over the remote environment, but also be as close as possible to what they would have if physically present at the remote end, i.e., transparency in terms of both action and perception. These two aspects may coincide in favorable conditions, where classic approaches such as the four-channel architecture ensures transparency of the control framework. In the presence of substantial delays between the user and the slave, however, the stability–performance trade-off inherent to bilateral teleoperation deteriorates not only transparency, but also command. An alternative, unilateral approach is given by tele-impedance, which controls the slave–environment interaction by measuring and remotely replicating the user’s limb endpoint position and impedance. Not including force feedback to the operator, tele-impedance is absolutely robust to delays, whereas it completely lacks transparency. This article introduces a novel control framework that integrates a new, fully transparent, two-channel bilateral architecture with the tele-impedance paradigm. The result is a unified solution that mitigates problems of classical approaches, and provides the user with additional tools to modulate the slave robot’s physical interaction behavior, resulting in a better operator experience in spite of time inconsistencies. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed solution is demonstrated in terms of performance in the interaction tasks, of user fatigue and overall experience.

中文翻译：

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统一双边远程操作和远程阻抗以增强用户体验

可用性是遥操作最重要的方面之一。理想情况下，操作员的经验应该是对远程环境的完全控制之一，但也应尽可能接近他们在远程端实际存在的情况，即在行动和感知方面的透明度。这两个方面可能在有利条件下重合，其中四通道架构等经典方法可确保控制框架的透明度。然而，在用户和从站之间存在大量延迟的情况下，双边遥操作固有的稳定性-性能权衡不仅会降低透明度，还会降低命令。远程阻抗给出了另一种单边方法，它通过测量和远程复制用户的肢体端点位置和阻抗来控制从属与环境的交互。不包括对操作员的力反馈，远程阻抗对延迟绝对可靠，而它完全缺乏透明度。本文介绍了一种新颖的控制框架，该框架将全新的、完全透明的、双通道双边架构与远程阻抗范式集成在一起。结果是一个统一的解决方案，减轻了经典方法的问题，并为用户提供了额外的工具来调节从属机器人的物理交互行为，从而在时间不一致的情况下提供更好的操作员体验。所提出的解决方案的有效性和有效性体现在交互任务的性能、用户疲劳和整体体验方面。