Shared mixed reality-bilateral telerobotic system.

This study proposes a new shared mixed reality (MR)-bilateral telerobotic system. The main contribution of this study is to combine MR teleoperation and bilateral teleoperation, which takes advantage of the two types of teleoperation and compensates for each other's drawbacks. With this combination, the proposed system can address the asymmetry issues in bilateral teleoperation, such as kinematic redundancy and workspace inequality, and provide force feedback, which is lacking in MR teleoperation. In addition, this system effectively supports long-distance movements and fine movements. In this system, a new MR interface is developed to provide the operator with an immersive visual feedback of the workspace, in which a useful virtual controller known as an interaction proxy-is designed. Compared with previous virtual reality-based teleoperation systems, this interaction proxy can freely decouple the operator from the control loop, such that the operational burden can be substantially alleviated. Additionally, the force feedback provided by the bilateral teleoperation gives the operator an advanced perception about the remote workspace and can improve task performance. Experiments on multiple pick-and-place tasks are provided to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed system. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.