2-DOF Haptic Feedback Control Stick for Remote Rover Navigation

This paper presents development of a 2DOF haptic feedback control stick for remote control of a two-parallel-wheeled rover. In bilateral control, when dynamics are quite different between a leader and follower devices, e.g., between a linear-slider type of control stick and a wheel with a comparatively large moment of inertia, a force reproduced on the control stick based on external forces applied to the rover’s wheel, is disturbed largely. Since the position control forces the control stick’s position and the rover’s angular velocity to be synchronized, the operator feels not only the reproduced force but also a force by this position control inevitably on the same time. We call this force a restoring force. The restoring force disturbs the operator to feel the reproduced force accurately. But the authors think the restoring force is meaningful for remote navigation of the rover as another haptic information. Thus, in this paper, we developed a 2-DOF haptic control stick, which transfers the reproduced force and the restoring force separately to a slider and a grip, and proposed a control method for achieving this purpose. The control stick was implemented and was performed successfully in verification experiments using the proposed control method. Experimental results were discussed comparing to the former 1-DOF control stick.