Experimental Verification of Underwater 2-ch Bilateral Controller with Disturbance Observer

This paper shows the experimental verification of an underwater bilateral system by using 2-ch control with disturbance observer (DOB). The operability of underwater remote control is important for the efficiency of operation. For operability improvement, the haptic transmission of remote control is one of the key technologies. This paper utilizes the 2-ch bilateral controller for the tactile transmission of the remote control. In underwater manipulation, fluid force, and modeling errors due to additional inertia and buoyancy occur. In the 2-ch bilateral controller, fluid force and these modeling errors influence the performance of the remote control. Therefore, DOB is implemented to compensate for fluid force and these modeling errors. In the simulation, the robustness against the modeling error was evaluated. The operability improvement of underwater remote control was experimentally verified.