In bilateral control applications, time delays in the communication channel have destabilizing effects and cause degradations in the performance of the system. In this paper, a sliding mode observer is used in conjunction with a disturbance observer to predict states of the slave system. Predicted states are then used in control formulation. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method avoids instability due to time delays in bilateral operation and provides satisfactory performance.

In bilateral control applications, time delays in the communication channel have destabilizing effects and cause degradations in the performance of the system. In this paper, a sliding mode observer is used in conjunction with a disturbance observer to predict states of the slave system. Predicted states are then used in control formulation. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method avoids instability due to time delays in bilateral operation and provides satisfactory performance.