Design principles of adaptive control systems for telerobots

An approach to design telerobots with variable parameters was previously presented [Slutski, Presence 6 (3), 255-267], which is intended to solve manipulation problems when fast transportation operations are combined with high precision positioning operations. Manipulator gain was used as a parameter for the flexible control of the system characteristics that introduced an additional channel of parameter adjustment into the system. This article presents design features of these systems that are based on the fact that a specific kind of adaptive algorithms obtained causes a special design for system hand controllers. The efficiency of these on-line systems with sufficiently simple control algorithms is shown with the help of semi-natural simulation and investigation of actual industrial robot control. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.