Control Design and Passivity Analysis for Scaled One-Dimensional Bilateral Teleoperated Nanomanipulation

In this paper, a novel control approach for one-dimensional bilateral teleoperated nanomanipulation system is proposed. While manipulating objects with a nanomanipulator, real time visual feedback is not available. So, force feedback is used to compensate for the lack of visual information. Since nanometer scale forces are dominated by surface forces instead of inertial forces as in macro world, scaling of nanoforces is one of the major issues of teleoperation system. The Hertz elastic contact model is used to model the interactions between the slave robot and the environment. The proposed approach uses the simple proportional derivative control, i.e., the master and slave robots are connected via a virtual spring and damper. The passivity of the combination of control blocks and communication is demonstrated via the control passivity concept. The outcome is a robust platform to enforce master-slave position coordination and perform teleoperated nanomanipulation on a broad range of materials. Simulations are performed to confirm the proposed control approach.