Development of a pneumatic force-display (application to a master-slave system)

In this study we deal with a bilateral master-slave system composed of a pneumatic force-display as the master and a hydraulic servo system as the slave. In such systems the force-display must play two roles as master: first as a reference input device to the slave and second as a force-display device. The first purpose of this study is to develop a pneumatic force-display that consists of a pneumatic servo system. To achieve this, it is necessary to solve a problem called back-drivability, a characteristic of pneumatic servo systems. The second purpose is to investigate the compatibility of our thusly developed force-display with some representative methods of bilateral master-slave control systems in conventional use. In experiments to confirm such compatibility, the sensibility of load forces is estimated based on a master-slave system equipped with a spring to serve as a load. The experiments confirm that the developed force-display would be applicable to conventional methods of bilateral master-slave systems.