A Multi-Master Single-Slave Teleoperation System Through Composite State Convergence

This paper extends the transparent bilateral state convergence control architecture to multilateral state convergence control architecture. The case of multi-master-single-slave teleoperation system is considered to show the design procedure. In the proposed architecture, composite variables are transmitted across the communication channel instead of full systems’ states. In addition, control gains are defined to consider masters-slave interactions. Through the method of state convergence, design conditions are derived to determine the control gains by allowing the tracking error to evolve as an autonomous system. To validate the findings, three-master-single-slave time-delayed system is simulated in MATLAB/QUARC/Simulink environment. It is found that the proposed architecture can establish communication between multiple systems to achieve position and force tracking.