Robust Control for a Human-Machine Interface Based on a Joystick System and its Digital Twin

This manuscript aims to present the development of a human-machine interface (H-MI) based on a master-slave system (M-SS) integrated by two joystick devices with two degrees of freedom. The first joystick was developed as a self-designed mechatronic system (master joystick), whereas the second was designed as a digital twin (slave joystick) of the master device. The control problem tackled in this study is ensuring the M-SS trajectory tracking under time-varying position constraints. The main contribution is focused on implementing a robust controller based on the sliding mode fundamentals, which considers the implementation of time-varying position constraints to satisfy a predefined workspace in the slave device, thus improving the HMI. A set of simulation and experimental results evidenced the effectiveness of the proposed H-MI to be used in several applications, such as medical rehabilitation systems and teleoperated devices, aside from virtual simulators.