A Multi-Master / Single-Slave Teleoperation System

In this paper, a multi-master/single-slave (MM/SS) teleoperated system is discussed. The desired objectives for the MM/SS system include both cooperative and training applications, such as surgical teleoperation and surgical training. An impedance-based control methodology is developed to satisfy the desired objectives of the MM/SS system in the presence of unknown communication delay. The developed methodology is an extension of a structure previously proposed for a dual-user system. To analysis stability of the closed-loop system, the small-gain theorem is used. The proposed stability procedure gives a sufficient condition to guarantee stability of the system in the presence of time delays. Experimental results performed on an MM/SS system with two operators communicating through the Internet demonstrate the validity of the proposed scheme.