Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE/RSJ International
1
Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
San Diego, CA, USA, Oct 29 - Nov 2, 2007
Projection-Based Force Reflection Algorithm for Stable Bilateral
Teleoperation over Networks
Ilia G. Polushin, Peter X. Liu, and Chung-Horng Lung
Abstract— The problem of stable force-reflecting teleopera-
tion is addressed where the communication between the master
and the slave is subject to multiple time-varying, discontinuous,
and possibly unbounded communication delays. A new force
reflection algorithm is proposed which improves the stability
of the system without decreasing its transparency. Based on an
estimate of the human forces provided by a high-gain input
observer, the proposed algorithm restricts the reflected force in
such a way that it eliminates the motion of the master induced
by the force reflection signal without changing the human
perception of the environmental force. It is shown that the force
reflection algorithm proposed allows to achieve stability of the
system for arbitrarily high force-reflection gain and arbitrarily
low damping/stiffness of the master manipulator.
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, significant research efforts have been directed
towards bilateral teleoperation over communication networks
such as the Internet. In force reflecting teleoperator systems,
the position and (or) velocity of the master manipulator is
sent over a communication channel to a remotely located
slave which is designed to follow the master’s motion. On
the other hand, the force feedback from the slave side is
transmitted back and applied to the motors of the master
manipulator. The purpose of such a force feedback is to
create some kinesthetic feeling of the remote task. To de-
scribe a degree of correspondence between the dynamics
perceived by the human operator and the actual dynamics
of the remote task, a notion of transparency is introduced. In
particular, the system is said to be perfectly transparent if a
human operator feels the remote task as if she (he) performs
it directly. Besides transparency, the overall stability of the
teleoperator system is the design requirement of paramount
importance. It is shown for the first time in [1] that, in
presence of communication delay as little as 0.1 sec, a
force-reflecting teleoperator system may exhibit an unstable
reaction to the contact with rigid environment. It is also
a well-known fact that, in bilateral teleoperation, stability
and transparency are conflicting goals [2]. In particular, high
force reflection gain provides a better kinesthetic feedback,
however, it also tends to destabilize the overall system due
to increasing the closed-loop gain. To the date, several
approaches have been proposed in the literature to deal
with trade-off between stability and high force reflection
This work is partially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council (NSERC) of Canada and the Canada Research Chairs
program.
I. G. Polushin, P. X. Liu, and C.-H. Lung are with the De-
partment of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton Univer-
sity, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada
{polushin,xpliu,chlung}@sce.carleton.ca
1-4244-0912-8/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE.
WeD6.
gain. The most obvious solution is to increase damping of
the master manipulator using local feedback. This improve
the stability of the system, however, the increased master
damping itself leads to transparency deterioration, since in
this case the human operator feels the stabilizing action of
the local controller rather than the pure interaction with the
remote environment. Increased master damping also makes
the system “sluggish” and nonresponsive even when the slave
moves in free space, and requires the human operator to
apply excessive forces for manipulation. Other approaches
include low-pass filtering of the slave reference trajectory [3]
as well as low-pass filtering of the reflected force [4], [5].
Both of these approaches, however, also result in trans-
parency deterioration. Another approach, which has recently
been proposed in [6], is based on the idea that the component
of the master movement caused by the force reflection can
be estimated and consequently canceled from the reference
trajectory of the slave. Thus, the force reflection term is
applied to the motors of the master and therefore felt by the
human operator, however, the corresponding master reaction
is removed from the feedback loop, thus avoiding possible
instability. This approach, nevertheless, has at least two
shortcomings. First, effective decomposition of the master
movement into the one caused by the human force and the
one due to force reflection is generally impossible when
dealing with a nonlinear model of the manipulator. Second,
some fundamental characteristics of the human response to
the force disturbances are not taken into account in this
approach. Indeed, as shown experimentally in [7], human
tends to increase the impedance (stiffness as well as damp-
ing) of the muscles in presence of force disturbances while
performing the mechanical tasks like moving a manipulator.
This will result in that the increased damping and stiffness
of the human hand will compensate, to a certain extent, the
reflected forces, and the resulting deviation of the master
trajectory will be smaller than the one calculated using the
master model. The subsequent cancelation of the calculated
master reaction from the slave reference trajectory, therefore,
may lead to unpredictable movements of the slave and
possible instability.
Finally, in [8], the authors presented an apporoach which
uses the following simple observation: a human operator can
feel a force only when pushing against it, and the magnitude
of the force felt by a human is equal to the magnitude
with which the human pushes against it. Based on this
observation, a projection-based algorithm proposed in [8]
restricts the direction and the magnitude of the reflected
force according to the direction and the magnitude of the
2654
human forces applied to the master. Such a restriction does
not affect the human perception of the force, however, it
removes the component of the force reflection that can po-
tentially destroy the system’s stability. This approach allows
to achieve the stability for an arbitrarily low damping of the
master manipulator and arbitrarily high force reflection gain.
The shortcoming of this approach is that it requires direct
measurement of the forces applied by the human operator,
which is expensive, noisy, and not always possible due to
design constraints.
The goal of this paper is to propose a new force reflec-
tion algorithm which improves the stability of the system
without decreasing its transparency and, unlike the algorithm
presented in [8], does not require direct measurement of
human forces. This is achieved by a combination of a new
projection-based force reflection algorithm with a high-gain
input observer that provides an estimate of the human force
applied to the master. More precisely, we address a force-
reflecting teleoperator system where the communication be-
tween the master and the slave is subject to multiple time-
varying, discontinuous, and possibly unbounded communica-
tion delays, and we show that the algorithm proposed allows
to achieve stability of the system for arbitrarily high force-
reflection gain and arbitrarily low damping/stiffness of the
master manipulator. Essentially, based on the estimate of
the human forces provided by the high-gain input observer,
the proposed algorithm imposes restrictions on the direction
and the magnitude of the reflected force. These restrictions
are not felt by the human operator, however, they eliminate
the unintentional (i.e., induced by the force reflection signal)
motion of the master, which preserves the overall stability of
the system. The stability analysis is based on the IOS small
gain theorem for systems with multiple time-varying com-
munication delays presented in its general form in [9] (see
also [10], [11], where the stability analysis is based on some
simplified versions of the theorem); the proofs, however, are
omitted due to space constraints. Simulation results presented
confirm the improvement of the stability properties of the
teleoperator system when using the algorithm proposed.
The paper is organized as follows. A description of the
teleoperator system with a new projection-based force reflec-
tion algorithm is given in section II. The stability analysis
of the teleoperator system is presented in section III. In sec-
tion IV, some results of computer simulations are described,
and some concluding remarks are given in section V.
II. T ELEOPERATOR SYSTEM WITH FORCE REFLECTION
A. A teleoperator system
Consider a standard teleoperator system which consists
of two robotic devices, called master and slave, connected
through a communication channel. The master manipulator
is described by a set of Euler-Lagrange equations of the form
Hm (qm ) q̈m +Cm (qm , q̇m ) q̇m +Gm (qm ) = um +Fh − F̂r .
(1)
Here, qm ∈ Qm ⊂ Rn is the position of the master ma-
nipulator, Hm (qm ) is the inertia matrix, Cm (qm , q̇m) is the
2655
matrix of Coriolis/centrifugal forces, Gm (qm ) is the vector
of gravitational forces, Fh ∈ Rn is the force (torque) applied
by the human operator to move the master manipulator, F̂r
is the environmental force (torque) reflected to the motors
of the master manipulator and, finally, um is the control
input of the local master controller. The local master control
law utilized in the paper is the well-known “passification +
damping injection” control algorithm described as follows
um = −Hm (qm ) Λm q̇m − Cm (qm , q̇m ) Λm q̇m
(2)
+Gm (qm ) − Km (q̇m + Λm qm ) ,
T
where Km = Km ∈ Rn×n, Λm = ΛTm ∈ Rn×n are
positive definite matrices. The control algorithm (2) was also
utilized in [10], [11] as a part of control schemes for bilateral
teleoperator system.
In this paper, we address a traditional “position-force”
architecture of the bilateral teleoperation [12], [5]. In this
type of teleoperator architecture, position (and possibly ve-
locity) of the master manipulator is transmitted through the
communication channel to the remotely located slave. In
recent years, the communication between the parts of teler-
obot is often performed over communication networks such
as the Internet. The communication networks have obvious
advantages in terms of availability and low-cost, however,
they normally impose some communication constraints such
as time-varying communication delays and possible packets
losses. Bearing these constraints in mind, we assume that
the position and possibly velocity of the master manipulator
are transmitted to the slave side with communication delays
τf p (·), τf v (·), according to the formulas
q̂m (t) = qm (t − τf p (t)) , q̇ˆm (t) = q̇m (t − τf v (t)) , (3)
where q̂m (t), q̇ˆm (t) are the master position and velocity
signals received on the slave side at time t, and τf p (t),
τf v (t) are communication delays in the position and velocity
channels, respectively. In general, both τf p (·), τf v (·) are
assumed to be time-varying, discontinuous, and possibly
unbounded functions of time (detailed assumptions are pre-
sented below in section III). By introducing two communi-
cation delay functions, τf p (·) and τf v (·), we reserve the
possibility to send the position and the velocity signals
asynchronously over two different channels.
In this paper, we do not address the issue of designing
a local slave controller that guarantees stable contact with
the environment. Instead, we assume that this problem is
already solved, and a local slave controller that guarantees
contact stability is designed. More precisely, assume that the
“slave + local controller + environment” interconnection can
be described as a dynamical system of the form
ẋs = fs (xs , us) ,
(4)
fe = hs (xs , us) .

T
Here, the state xs := qsT , q̇sT , xTe consists of the position
qs ∈ Qs ⊂ Rn and velocity q̇s ∈ Rn of the slave
manipulator, and the state of environment xe ∈ Qe ⊂ Rp .
 T
T ˆT
Moreover, the input us := q̂m , q̇m of the system (4)
consists of the delayed position and (possibly) velocity of the
master manipulator, both defined by formulas (3). Finally,
fe ∈ Rn is the contact force (torque) due to environment
applied to the slave manipulator, which plays the role of
the output of the “slave + local controller + environment”
subsystem (4). It is assumed that the system (4) produces
a stable response to any bounded input signal, according to
the following assumption.
Assumption 1. The “slave + local controller + environ-
ment” interconnection is input-to-output stable, i.e., there
exist γs ≥ 0 and δs ≥ 0 such that for each initial condition
xs (0) and each measurable uniformly essentially bounded
input us (t), t ≥ 0, the corresponding solution xs (t) is well-
defined for all t ≥ 0, and the following two properties hold:
i) uniform boundedness: there exists β ∈ K∞ such that
 
sup |fe (t)| ≤ max β (|xs (0)|) , γs sup |us(t)| , δs ;
t≥0 t≥0
ii) convergence:
 
lim sup |fe (t)| ≤ max γs lim sup |us(t)| , δs . •
t→+∞ t→+∞
The notion of IOS was introduced in [13], and extensively
studied by E.D.Sontag and coauthors; examples of local
slave controllers that guarantee the input-to-output stability
property of the “slave + environment” interconnections can
utilized in [8]: a human operator can feel an (environmental)
force only when pushing against it, and the magnitude
of the environmental force felt by a human is equal to
the magnitude with which the human pushes against the
environment. In particular, this implies that, based on the
knowledge of the human force applied, the force reflection
signal can, roughly speaking, be restricted to the direction
against the human force, and its magnitude can also be
bounded by a function of the magnitude of the human force.
Most importantly, these changes in force reflection signal
does not affect the human perception of the environmental
forces, i.e., the human operator simply would not notice
the difference between the modified and the original force
reflection signal. However, our stability analysis shows that,
using this technique, the component of the environmental
forces that is most dangerous from the system’s stability
point of view can be removed from the system. A simple
FR algorithm of this type can be described as follows
F̂r := αfˆr + (1 − α) f¯r (7)
where α ∈
[0, 1] is weighting coefficient, and f¯r :=
f¯r1 , . . . , f¯rn is a projection of the force reflecting signal
defined for each i ∈ {1, . . . , n} as follows
 
 F̂ fˆ 
f¯ri := Proj 
 hi ri2  F̂hi . (8)
be found in [11], [10]. The contact force due to environment [0,1]   2 
fe is then measured on the slave side, and the following
signal
fˆr (t) = Kf · fe (t − τb (t)) , (5)
is available to the force reflection algorithm on the master
side, where Kf > 0 is the force reflecting gain. Again, τb (·)
is the delay in the backward communication channel which,
in general, is assumed to be time-varying, discontinuous, and
possibly unbounded function of time (detailed assumptions
are presented in section III).
The primary goal of this paper is to design a new force
reflecting algorithm, i.e., an algorithm that calculates the
force reflecting term F̂r in (1). In most schemes, the force
reflection term F̂r is traditionally chosen to be equal to fˆr ,
F̂r = fˆr , (6)
which constitutes the direct or “proportional” force feedback.
To achieve good transparency of the teleoperation, Kf in
(5) should be chosen high enough. The problem, however,
is that the proportional force reflection algorithm (6) with
high force reflection gain generally makes the teleoperator
system unstable. In the next section, we will present a force
reflection algorithm that provides the human operator with
essentially the same kinesthetic feedback as the algorithm (6)
does, yet does not destabilize the overall teleoperator system.
B. Projection-based force reflection algorithm without hu-
man force measurements
The force reflection (FR) algorithm proposed in this paper
is based on the following simple observation which is also
2656
max F̂hi  , 0
 T
Here, F̂h := F̂h1 , . . . , F̂hn ∈ Rn is an estimate of the
human force Fh applied to the master manipulator, 0 >
is a sufficiently small constant, and the projection operator
Proj[a,b] : R → [a, b] is defined as follows

 x if x ∈ [a, b] ,
Proj x := a if x ≤ a,
[a,b] 
b if x ≥ b,
The FR algorithm (7), (8) suggests that a weighted com-
bination of fˆr , which is the actual contact force due to
environment (multiplied by Kf ), and the projected force f¯r
should be applied to the motors of the master. In the ultimate
case α = 1, the FR algorithm (7) turns into the proportional
force reflection algorithm (6). It is worth to mention that
the components fˆr and f¯r are equivalent from the point of
view of human force perception in the sense that they are
felt equal by the human operator. The difference, however, is
that, contrary to fˆr , the component f¯r does not produce the
induced motion of the master manipulator, in particular, in
the situations where the human operator releases the master
or holds it passively without trying to push against the
environmental forces. Thus, because of the absence of the
corresponding induced motion, the component f¯h does not
create any destabilizing effect. The choice of α represents a
trade-off between stability margin of the bilateral teleoperator
and the existence (and the amount) of the induced motion
due to environmental force, since the latter may be useful in
some teleoperation tasks.
 The FR algorithm (7), (8) utilizes an estimate F̂h of
the force Fh applied by the human operator to the master
manipulator. If a direct force measurement on the master side
is not available, F̂h can be obtained based on the resulting
master motion. To this end, different types of input estimators
can be employed (see, for example [14]). In particular,
a high-gain observer can be constructed that provides an
estimate of the human force (i.e., F̂h ). This observer has
a form
 
ẇ = −γ w + F̂r + Km em + γ 2 Hm (qm ) em
 
−γ Cm (qm , q̇m) − Ḣm (qm , q̇m) em , (9)
F̂h = γHm (qm ) em − w, (10)
{ij}
where Ḣm (qm , q̇m) ∈ Rn×n, Ḣm (qm , q̇m) =
 T
{ij}
∂Hm (qm ) /∂qm q̇m , i, j ∈ {1, . . ., n}. The estimate
F̂h provided by the high-gain observer (9), (10) can be used
in the force-reflecting algorithm (7), (8).
III. S TABILITY OF THE TELEOPERATOR SYSTEM WITH
PROJECTION - BASED FR ALGORITHM
In this section, we present a rigorous stability result for the
teleoperator system (1) – (5) with force reflection algorithm
(7) – (10). First let us introduce assumptions which are
imposed on communication delay functions τf p (·), τf v (·),
τb (·), as follows.
Assumption 2. The communication delays τf p , τf v ,
τb : R → R+ are Lebesgue measured functions with the
following properties:
i) there exist τ∗ > 0 and a piecewise continuous function
τ ∗ : R → R+ satisfying τ ∗ (t2 ) − τ ∗ (t1 ) ≤ t2 − t1 , such that
the inequalities
τ∗ ≤ min {τf p (t), τf v (t), τb (t)}
≤ max {τf p (t), τf v (t), τb (t)} ≤ τ ∗ (t)
holds for all t ≥ 0;
ii)
t − max {τf p (t), τf v (t), τb (t)} → +∞ as t → +∞. •
Remark 1. Assumption 2 is a very general one. In
particular, part i) can always be satisfied in a real life
communication network by using standard techniques such
as sequence numbering and (or) timestamping. On the other
hand, part ii) of Assumption 2 simply means the existence
of communication between the subsystems, and is always
satisfied unless the communication between subsystems is
totally lost on a semi-infinite time interval. A more detailed
explanation of the assumption 2 can be found in [9]. •
Since the teleoperator system under consideration contains
delay blocks, it cannot be described as a system of ordinary
differential equations. The more appropriate mathematical
object would be a system of delay-differential equations,
which itself is a special case of a more general class of sys-
tems of
functional-differential equations

T (FDEs). Let xM :=
T T T
qm , q̇m and xS := qsT , q̇sT , xTe be the state of the
“master” and “slave+environment” subsystems, respectively.
2657
Then the state of the closed-loop teleoperator system can be
defined as follows

T
xd := xTM , xTS , (11)
d
where, following the notation presented in [15],
[16], xd (t) = {x(s) : s ∈ [t − td , t]}, and td (t) :=
max {τf p (t), τf v (t), τb(t)}. Thus, xd (t) is a piece of
trajectory which begins at s = t − td (t) and ends at s = t,
rather than simply its value at time t. For our purposes, it
is convenient to choose the output of this system as follows

T
y := xTM , feT . (12)
Also, we will consider the human force (torque) Fh as
one of the inputs of the teleoperator system. For the sake
of simplicity of formulations and proofs, we assume that
the force (torque) Fh (t) applied by the human operator
is a locally absolutely continuous function of time t. In
particular, this implies (see, for example [17, page 471])
that the time derivative of Fh (denoted by Ḟh ) is well-
defined for almost all t ∈ R+ . Note that this assumption
is merely technical; without it, however, the formulation
and the proof of the stability result would become more
complicated. Under this assumption, one can consider Ḟh
as an additional “disturbance” input, and our design goal
includes the requirement that the effect of Ḟh on the system’s
trajectories should be attenuated to an arbitrary low level. In
terms of input-to-output stability property, this means that
the IOS gain with respect to “input” Ḟh should be assigned
arbitrarily small.
Theorem 1. Consider the force-reflecting teleoperator sys-
tem (1)–(5) with force reflection algorithm (7), (8), (9), (10).
Suppose “slave + local controller + environment” intercon-
nection satisfies the Assumption 1, and the communication
delay functions τf p (·), τf v (·), τb(·) satisfy the Assumption 2.
Then the following statements are valid.
i) Given kf∗ ∈ (0, +∞), there exists α∗ > 0 such that
if α in (7) satisfies α ∈ [0, α∗], then the hforce-reflecting
i
teleoperator system is IOS as long as Kf ∈ 0, kf∗ .
ii) If α = 0 in (7), then the force-reflecting teleoperator
system is IOS for any force-reflecting gain Kf ≥ 0.
Moreover, in both the cases i) and ii), the IOS gain with
respect to “input” Ḟh can be made arbitrarily small by
choosing γ > 0 in (9), (10) sufficiently large. •
IV. S IMULATION RESULTS
In this section, we present some simulation results in
support of the theoretical development presented above. We
simulate a teleoperator system that consists of two identical
2 degrees-of-freedom (2-DOF) master and slave manipula-
tors with rotational joints described by the Euler-Lagrange
equations of the form (1) with with Hm (q) = Hs(q) ∈ R2×2,
Cm (q, q̇) = Cs (q, q̇) ∈ R2×2, Gm (q) = Gs(q) ∈ R2 , where master stiffness also implies that the gain of the closed-
loop teleoperator system is high enough. In the case of
h11 = (2l1 cos q2 + l2 )l2 m2 + l12 (m1
+ m2 ),
2 2 proportional FR algorithm (6), this leads to unstable reaction
h12 = h21 = l2 m2 + l1 l2 m2 cos q2, h22 = l2 m2
in presence of significant communication delays. This is
c11 = −l1 l2 m2 sin(q2 )q̇2, c12 = −l1 l2 m2 sin(q2) (q̇1 + q̇2) ,
confirmed by our simulation results, where the teleoperator
c21 = l1 l2 m2 sin(q2 ), c22 = 0
system with proportional FR algorithm (6) is found to
g1 = g (m2 l2 sin(q1 + q2) + (m1 + m2 )l1 sin(q1)) ,
exhibit some damped oscillations during the contact with the
g2 = gm2 l2 sin(q1 + q2),
obstacle (15) in presence of average round trip time (RTT)
and the parameters are m1 = 10kg, m2 = 5kg, l1 = 0.7m, delay equal to 0.5 sec, while clearly demonstrates an unstable
l2 = 0.5m, g = 9.81m/sec2 . The master control law is reaction for 1 sec as well as 2 sec average RTT delay. The
described by the formula (2) with Km = diag {5, 5}, Λm = plots for 2 sec average RTT delay are presented in figure 2.
diag {0.15, 0.1}. To achieve the input-to-output stability of The same situation (contact with the environment in
the closed-loop “slave+environment” subsystem, we use the presence of communication delay) has also been simulated
slave control law borrowed from [11]. The control law for the system with projection-based FR algorithm (7), (8),
consists of a second order “dirty-derivative” filter (9), (10). The parameter α in (7) is chosen equal to 0.05,
˙
ξ1 = ξ2 + gα1 (q̂m − ξ1 ) , 0 = 0.01, and the gain of the high-gain observer (9), (10)
(13) is γ = 10. In all the three cases (where the average RTT
ξ˙2 = γ α0 (q̂m − ξ1 ) ,
2
delay is equal to 0.5 sec, 1 sec, and 2 sec, respectively),
and “passivity-based” slave control algorithm the system with the proposed projection-based FR algorithm
us = Cs (qs, q̇s) (ξ2 + Λs (ξ1 − qs)) + Gs (qs) demonstrates a stable contact with the environment in spite
2

of the low values of the master damping and stiffness. The
+Hs (qs ) g α0 (q̂m − ξ1) + Λs (ξ2 + gα1 (q̂m − ξ1 ) − q̇s )
−Ks (q̇s − ξ2 + Λs (qs − ξ1 )) . simalation results for 2 sec average RTT delay are presented
(14) in figure 3. Overall, the application of the projection-based
The parameters of the slave control law (13) - (14) are chosen FR algorithm (7), (8) (9), (10) significantly improves the
as follows α0 = 1, α1 = 2, γ = 1, and Ks := diag {10, 5}, stability properties of the force-reflecting teleoperator system
Λs := diag {2, 1}. in comparison with the more traditional proportional FR
We simulate an experimental situation, where the human algorithm (6).
operator moves the master manipulator along the x-axis in
the task space. The force profile applied by the human V. C ONCLUDING R EMARKS
operator is shown in Fig. 1(a). Following the resulting motion In this paper, a new projection-based force reflection algo-
of the master, the slave manipulator hits an obstacle located rithm for stable bilateral teleoperation over networks such as
at x = 0.25m. The obstacle is described by the following the Internet is presented. The algorithm utilizes an estimate
model of the human forces applied to the master manipulator which

0 if x < 0.25m; is obtained using a high-gain input observer. It is shown
Fx = (15)
Dẋ + S (x − 0.25) if x ≥ 0.25m, that the force-reflecting telerobotic system equipped with
the FR algorithm proposed is stable in the presence of
where the damping coefficient D = 1N · s · m−1 and
multiple time-varying possibly unbounded communication
the stiffness coefficient S = 10000N · m−1 . Note that
delays for arbitrary high force reflection gain and arbitrary
the stiffness coefficient is high enough which allows us to
low damping and stiffness of the master manipulator. Thus,
simulate a hard contact. After the contact between the slave
the algorithm proposed solves, to some extent, the trade-off
and the obstacle is established, the human operator continues
between stability and high force reflecting gain. Simulation
to apply force to the master until t = 30sec, and then releases
results presented confirm significant improvement of stability
it. The communication delay functions in both the forward
properties provided by the proposed projection-based FR
(from master to slave) and the backward directions were
algorithm.
modeled as a sum of a constant term and a band-limited
white noise with sampling period 0.05 sec. An example of
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increasing transparency and stability robustness in bilateral telema-
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determined by the combination of Km and Λm is sufficiently 2676, Apr. 2000.
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 Torques applied by the Human Operator Communication Delay
2 2

Torques applied by the human operator (N × m)

1.8

1.5
1.6

1.4
1 F (t)=F (t)
h1 h2
1.2

Delay (sec)
0.5 1

0.8

0
0.6

0.4
−0.5

0.2

−1 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (sec) Time (sec)

(a) Torques applied by the human operator (b) Example of Communication Delay Func-
tion
Fig. 1. Human torques and communication delay

X−Coordinates of the Master and the Slave (without FR algorithm)

X−component of the contact force
0.4
1
Master
X−Coordinates: the master and the slave (m)

Trajectory 0
0.35

−1
0.3

Contact X−force (N)

−2
0.25
−3
0.2
−4
0.15
−5

0.1
−6

0.05 −7
Slave
Trajectory
0 −8
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (sec) Time (sec)

(a) X-Trajectories of the master and the slave (b) X-component of the contact force

Fig. 2. Proportional FR Algorithm (6), Average RTT=2 sec

X−Coordinates of the Master and the Slave (with FR algorithm)

0.4 X−Component of the Contact Force
1
X−Coordinates: the master and the slave (m)

Master
0.35
Trajectory 0

0.3 −1
Contact X−force (N)

0.25 −2

−3
0.2

−4
0.15 Slave
Trajectory −5
0.1
−6
0.05
−7

0 −8
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (sec)
Time (sec)

(a) X-Trajectories of the master and the slave (b) X-component of the contact force

Fig. 3. Projection-Based FR Algorithm (7), (8), (9), (10), Average RTT=2 sec

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