Received: 21 January 2021 Revised: 7 April 2021 Accepted: 22 April 2021 IET Control Theory & Applications

DOI: 10.1049/cth2.12155

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

Finite-time convergence for bilateral teleoperation systems with

disturbance and time-varying delays

Phuong Nam Dao1 Van Tinh Nguyen2 Yen-Chen Liu2

1
School of Electrical Engineering, Hanoi University
of Science and Technology (HUST), Hanoi, Vietnam
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National
Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan
Correspondence
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National
Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan 70101,
Taiwan.
Email: yliu@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Funding information
Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan,
Grant/Award Number: MOST 110-2636-E-006-
005; National Cheng Kung University
Abstract
This paper addresses the robust finite-time sliding mode control algorithms for nonlin-
ear bilateral teleoperators in the presence of variable time delays and disturbances. In this
paper, the designs of terminal sliding control are proposed to guarantee the finite-time
convergence of not only the sliding variables but also the coordination errors on posi-
tion tracking. The proposed control algorithm is able to ensure finite-time convergence
without requiring the relative velocities and power signal in the communication channel.
Additionally, the finite-time controller is developed with additional terms of sign and expo-
nential function to tackle the variable time delay between two sides in bilateral teleopera-
tors. The Lyapunov synthesis principle and additional lemmas are exploited to ensure the
finite-time stability of the closed-loop system in the presence of delays and disturbance.
The situations of free-motion, passive, and non-passive human/environment forces are
considered for finite-time convergence without the need of acceleration signals. Finally,
numerical examples and experimental studies are carried out to illustrate the effectiveness
of the proposed controllers.

1 INTRODUCTION
Bilateral teleoperators have been developed for decades starting
from Raymond C. Goertz who initiated the use of teleoperation
system on handling radioactive material. Nowadays, bilateral
teleoperation systems, which can provide force/position/video
feedback from the remote side to the human operator, have
lead to extensive applications on space exploration, robotic
telesurgery, and rehabilitation [1]. In the aspects of control
and automation, the challenges in bilateral teleoperators are to
develop appropriate controllers for the sake of ensuring sta-
bility, position tracking, feedback in the presence of dynamic
uncertainties, external disturbances, and long-distance commu-
nication delays [2–8]. Recently, the development of control algo-
rithms to deal with actuator saturation, full-state constraint, and
finite-time control has become an emerging topic in the com-
munities of control and robotics [8, 9].
For bilateral teleoperation systems, [1] presents the solution
of finite-time convergence based on the considering terminal
sliding mode control as well as integrating more the exponential
terms into controller. Moreover, the terminal sliding mode con-
trol technique is also employed to handle the finite-time con-
vergence problem [10] and combining with Barrier Lyapunov
Function (BLF) based position synchronization error control
design. It should be noted that the BLF technique is the key
technique for handling the full-state constraints in dynamical
systems. Additionally, it is worth emphasizing that the full-state
constraints problem was mentioned in robot systems [11]; how-
ever, this work eliminated the derivative of system matrix and
the disadvantage was dealt with adaptive neural control law
in [12]. Furthermore, the difficulties of the these control designs
lie in the fact that they employed neural networks to approxi-
mate dynamic uncertainties [1, 10]. Therefore, it requires a large
amount of computation in implementing the previous solu-
tions [1, 10].
Several approaches in studying bilateral teleoperation systems
were pointed out in recent times for the issues of disturbance,
dynamic uncertainties, and time delays [4, 5, 8, 13]. In [14], the
saturation function was inserted into the controller to handle
the actuator saturation without any back correction part. To

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2 DAO ET AL.
guarantee the effective suppression of undesirable time-delayed
estimation error, the compensation term has positive time-
varying switching gains that gives a reason for overall system
stability [15]. The filtered linear and nonlinear position/force
mappings were investigated to obtain the appropriate controller
in [16]. The control design under the consideration of Laplacian
domain and Hamiltonian approach was mentioned in Teleoper-
ation stabilization [17].
The identification and compensation technique of Shunt
dynamics [18] and a two-layer consideration using passivity
and transparency [19] were considered to handle the prob-
lem of time delays in bilateral teleoperation systems. Regard-
ing the elimination of gravity measurement, the traditional Lya-
punov method was mentioned in [20]. Additionally, the tra-
ditional passivity-based control has been considered in recent
times by adding more passive element to guarantee the pas-
sive systems [21]. The extensions of bilateral teleoperation sys-
tems were mentioned as teleoperating cyber-physical systems
were considered to find the appropriate control design including
classical nonlinear control [22], neural networks, Linear Matrix
Inequalities (LMIs) [5], and distributed formation control [23].
The time delay problem in bilateral teleoperation systems
plays an important role among the design of various control
techniques. The methods to handle the effect of time-delays
have been considered in general case [24–26]. In order to tackle
this disadvantage, the wave form variable theory along with
scattering theory were developed in [8, 27]. The idea of this
method is to establish the corresponding electrical circuit of
bilateral teleoperators obtaining the appropriate control scheme.
Optimal control approach was mentioned in [8] based on the
linearization technique and solve offline the Ricatti equation.
Hence, the method in [8] is difficult for dynamic uncertainties
due to analytically solving Ricatti equation.
The approach for time-delay effect under the consideration
of Lyapunov–Krasovskii functionals with the advantage of large
scope of application has been determined in [2, 4, 22]. It should
be emphasizing that the proposed controllers in [7, 28] only
consider the situation of constant time delay. In the case of vari-
able time delays, the work in [2, 29] proposed the control design
based on the appropriate Lyapunov candidate function with
integral term and additional lemmas. In addition, the motion-
force control was presented by using LMI technique to han-
dle the case of variable time delays [30]. A sliding-mode-based
controller was proposed in [31] with time-delay and disturbance
observer using exponential functions to solve the variable time
delay and estimate dynamic uncertainties. A different approach
using the switching control technique was proposed in [32–34]
to overcome the challenges of varying time-delay and actua-
tor saturation. For the disadvantage of disturbance, the interval
observer was implemented by adding more a new state variable
with the corresponding estimations of upper, lower bounds in
linear systems [35] and nonlinear systems [36].
In this paper, we present comprehensive solutions to tackle
the challenges in the above contents, which are external dis-
turbance, dynamic uncertainties, and time delays, in a finite-
time manner. Two novel finite-time convergence based sliding
mode control algorithms are proposed for bilateral teleopera-
tion systems in this work with the main contributions as follows:
1) The terminal sliding mode control law with disturbances is
proposed for the direction of finite-time convergence of slid-
ing surface and trajectory tracking control objective. Different
from the work also be mentioned robust adaptive controller and
finite-time convergence in [1, 27, 28, 37], thanks to employing
the property of bilateral teleoeprations, the approximate neu-
ral network is eliminated in the proposed control scheme. 2)
In the case of variable time delays, a proposed controller using
the sign function term is not only mentioned to eliminate the
approximate neural network but also handle the finite-time con-
trol problem. It is worth noting that the finite-time convergence
is mentioned in both sliding variables and tracking errors of
two proposed controllers. Additionally, the cases of non-passive
and bounded human/environmental force are considered in the
proposed controllers.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 for-
mulates a teleoperation system with appropriate assumptions
under time-varying delay and uncertainties. In Section 3, the two
proposed control algorithm are described and proved. The per-
formance of the developed control scheme is demonstrated in
Section 4 via numerical examples and experiments on robotic
manipulators. Finally, conclusion remarks are discussed in Sec-
tion 5.
1.1 Preliminary and problem statement
The bilateral teleoperator considered in this paper is composed
of a local robot, collocated with a human operator, and a remote
robot, executing tasks in the remote environment. By describ-
ing the robots in the bilateral teleoperator with the dynamic
models being given by Euler-Lagrange equations [7], we have
that
⎧M (q )q̈ + C (q , q̇ )q̇ + g (q ) = 𝜏 + 𝜏 + 𝜔
⎪ l l l l l l l l l l h l
⎨ ( ) ( ) ( ) , (1)
⎪Mr qr q̈ r + Cr qr , q̇ r q̇ r + gr qr = 𝜏r − 𝜏e + 𝜔r
⎩
where, for i ∈ {l , r}, 𝜏i ∈ ℝn are the input vectors of the
applied torques on the local and remote manipulators, respec-
tively, qi ∈ ℝn is the general coordinates, that is, the vec-
tors of joint variables, Mi (qi ) ∈ ℝn×n are the inertia matri-
ces, Ci (qi , q̇ i ) ∈ ℝn×n are the centripetal Coriolis matrices, and
gi (qi ) ∈ ℝn are the gravitational vectors. It is remarkable to note
that the torque, 𝜏h ∈ ℝn , on the local robot is exerted by human,
and the torque, 𝜏e ∈ ℝn , denotes the torque exerted from the
remote environment. These are the input torques commanding
the motion of the local and remote robots in a teleoperator.
By considering the model of Euler–Lagrange equations, the
following properties can be employed for designing the con-
troller in this paper that
Property 1. For a vector, 𝜉i ∈ ℝn , the robot dynamics in (1)
can be written as parameterizable linearization such that Mi (qi )𝜉̇ i +
Ci (qi , q̇ i )𝜉i + gi (qi ) = Yi (qi , q̇ i , 𝜉i , 𝜉̇ i )Θi where Θi ∈ ℝq is a vec-
DAO ET AL. 3

tor of system parameters, and Yi (qi , q̇ i , 𝜉i , 𝜉̇ i ) ∈ ℝn×q is a time-varying condition that −Tdil ≤ Ṫ i (t ) < 1, where 0 < Tdil ≤ ∞ is the neg-
matrix to be independent with parameters vector Θi ∈ ℝq . ative of the lower bound of the derivative of the variable time
delays, Ti (t ). It is noted that in a delay-free case, the coor-
Property 2. Under an appropriate definition of the matrix Ci (qi , q̇ i ), dination errors are given as el (t ) = qr (t ) − ql (t ) = −er (t ) and
the matrix Ṁ i (qi ) − 2Ci (qi , q̇ i ) is a skew symmetric. ė l (t ) = q̇ r (t ) − q̇ l (t ) = −ė r (t ).
For the sake of developing the finite-time convergence con-
Property 3. Mi (qi ) is a symmetric positive-definite matrix to be bounded trol for bilateral teleoperators, the following instructive lemmas
by the inequality such that 𝛼i In ≤ Mi (qi ) ≤ 𝛽i In with 𝛼i , 𝛽i being two are required such that
positive numbers.
Lemma 1. For x, y ∈ ℝn , 𝛼 > 0 and 0 < Ti (t ) ≤ T̄i < ∞, we
The control objective of this paper is to design applied con- have the inequality that
trol inputs 𝜏l and 𝜏r such that the tracking problem in bilat-
eral teleoperators is satisfied in both sides despite variable time t 0
𝛼 T̄ 2
‖x‖2 + i ‖ y‖
2 2
delays and human, environmental torques 𝜏h , 𝜏e . The external − x T (𝜎) y(𝜎 + 𝜃)d 𝜃d 𝜎 ≤ ‖ ‖ . (8)
∫0 ∫−T (𝜎) 2 2𝛼 2
i
torques could be various depending on the application in prac-
tice. By denoting sl and sr as the output of the local and remote
Lemma 2. For x, y ∈ ℝn and ∀Ti (t ) > 0 with Γ being a positive-
robots, respectively, the human and environmental torques con-
definite matrix, the inequality is valid such that
sidered in this paper are
t t
⎧ t −2x T (t ) y(𝜎)d 𝜎 − yT (𝜎)Γy(𝜎)d 𝜎
⎪− 𝜏T (𝜎 )sl (𝜎 )d 𝜎 ≥ −ch , ∫t −T (t ) ∫t −T (t )
⎪ ∫0 h
i i

Passive torque: ⎨ t (2) ≤ T̄i x T (t )Γ−1 x(t ). (9)

⎪
⎪ ∫ 𝜏e (𝜎 )sr (𝜎 )d 𝜎 ≥ −ce ,
T

⎩ 0
Lemma 3. [1] Considering the system described as
dx
= f (x) and
dt
Non passive torque: 𝜏h = 𝛼h − kh sl , 𝜏e = ke sr , (3) there exists a continuous positive differentiable function V ∶ U ∖{0} →
d
ℝ+ , satisfying V (x) ≤ −𝜇V 𝜎 (x) + 𝛿, x ∈ U0 ∖{0}, where 0 <
dt
Bounded torque: 𝜏h ∈ ∞ , 𝜏e ∈ ∞ , (4) 𝜎 < 1, 𝜇 > 0, 𝛿 > 0, and U0 ⊂ U ∖{0} is an open neighborhood of
the origin. Then, the system is finite-time stable. If U0 = U , the system is
where ch , ce are positive constants depending on the initial con- globally finite-time stable, and the system can converge to neighborhood Ω
ditions of the bilateral teleoperators, and 𝛼h , kh , ke are positive in finite-time T , which can be computed as
constants with respect to the type of input torques from the
human and remote environment. ⎧ [ ]1 ⎫
In addition to the external forces exerted on the teleopera- V (1−𝜎 ) (0 ) ⎪ 𝛿 𝜎⎪
T ≤ , Ω = max ⎨x ∣ V ≤ ,
𝜇 (1 − 𝜐 ) ⎬
(10)
tors, the signals transmitted between the local and the remote 𝜇𝜐 (1 − 𝜎 ) ⎪ ⎪
robots could be subjected to unreliable communication net- ⎩ ⎭
work. Therefore, the presence of time delays is not neglectable.
By considering the signals transmitted from the local robot where 0 < 𝜐 < 1, and max{⋅} denotes the maximum value of the variable.
(remote robot) to the other sides subject to variable time delays
Tl (t ) (Tr (t )), the coordination (tracking) errors can be given as Lemma 4. [1] For any a, b, c ∈ ℝ, if a > 0, b > 0, and 0 < c < 1,
the following inequality is satisfied (a + b)c ≤ ac + bc .
el (t ) = qr (t − Tr (t )) − ql , er (t ) = ql (t − Tl (t )) − qr , (5)
Lemma 5. For any s ∈ ℝn , M ∈ ℝn×n is a positive definite matrix,
where 0 ≤ Ti (t ) ≤ T̄i < ∞ are continuous and bounded the inequality is satisfied such that s T s ≥ (𝜆max {M })−1 s T Ms, where
time-varying delays; under the formulation, we denote the upper 𝜆max {⋅} is the maximum eigenvalue of the enclosed matrix.
bound of the round-trip delays as T̄ ∶= T̄l + T̄r . By taking the
time-derivative of the coordination errors, we get
2 FINITE-TIME CONTROLLER FOR
d d
ė l (t ) = fr (t ) qr (t − Tr (t )) − ql , (6)
BILATERAL TELEOPERATORS
dt dt
In this section, the main results of this paper for the finite-time
d d controller of bilateral teleoperators by using terminal sliding-
ė r (t ) = fl (t ) q (t − Tl (t )) − qr , (7)
dt l dt mode control and the additional term of sign function in
various cases are addressed. First, the finite-time control is
where fi (t ) = 1 − Ṫ i (t ), i = l , r are two positive scalar func- developed for bilateral teleoperators under the influence of
tions. The aforementioned delays are considered to satisfy the passivity human and environmental force (2). The disturbed
4 DAO ET AL.

teleoperator with delay-free case is first investigated by utiliz- where 𝜉i,max = max{𝜉1 , … , 𝜉n }. Furthermore, based on
ing the terminal sliding-model control method and robust algo- Lemma 5, we have the estimation
rithm for dynamic uncertainties (Theorem 1). Subsequently,
n||𝜉i,max || ≥ 𝜉 T 𝜉 ≥ (𝜆max {Σ})−1 𝜉 T Σ𝜉.
the issue of variable time delays in communication network is 2
(14)
studied with the design of a novel controller to ensure finite-
time convergence of the teleoperation systems (Theorem 2). Therefore, we have that
The extensions of the bilateral teleoperators under different
1 ( | ) ′
human/environmental forces, as described in (3) and (4), are
|2 𝜌 1 ( )𝜌′
also studied. ′
n |𝜉i,max | ≥ ′ (𝜆max {Σ})−1 𝜉 T Σ𝜉
n𝜌 n𝜌
′
(
′ 1 T
) (1 )
2.1 Finite-time control for teleoperators = 2𝜌 (n𝜆max {Σ})−𝜌 𝜉 Σ𝜉 ∶= 𝜂 𝜉 T Σ𝜉 , (15)
2 2
with disturbance
′ ′
where 𝜂 = 2𝜌 (n𝜆max {Σ})−𝜌 is a positive constant. □
In order to guarantee finite-time convergence of both the sliding
variables and the coordination errors, the terminal sliding vari-
The control algorithm for the bilateral teleoperators with the
able is designed with the use of sign function. Additionally, the
use of Property 1 is stated as following
uncertainty of external disturbances are coped with by using the
robust control algorithm. The convergence analysis of the slid-
ing variables and tracking errors are realized sequentially under 𝜏i = M̂ i (qi )𝜆𝜑̇ i + Ĉ i (qi , q̇ i )𝜆𝜑i + ĝi (qi ) − kt si
the advantage of terminal sliding-mode control technique. −ks 𝜓(si )𝜌 − 𝜔̂ i
For the bilateral teleoperators, the terminal sliding variables
for i = {l , r} is considered as ̂ i − kt si − ks 𝜓(si )𝜌 − 𝜔̂ i ,
= Yi (qi , q̇ i , 𝜑i , 𝜑̇ i )Θ (16)
𝜎
si = q̇ i − 𝜆𝜓 (ei ) = q̇ i − 𝜆𝜑i , (11) where {⋅} ̂ is the estimation of the enclosed signal/matrix, and
kt , ks are positive control gains. The uncertainties of dynamic
where 𝜆 > 0, 0 < 𝜎 < 1, and the sign function is given as parameters and disturbances are obtained by using the nominal
𝜑i = 𝜓(ei )𝜎 . The function 𝜓(x)𝛾 with constant 𝛾 and x = and additional control inputs as [2] such that
{x1 , … , xn } ∈ ℝn is given as
[ ]T ̂ i = Θi0 + 𝛿Θi ,
Θ 𝜔̂ i = 𝜔i0 + 𝛿𝜔i , (17)
𝛾 𝛾 𝛾
𝜓 (x ) = |x1 | 1 sign (x1 ), … , |xn | n sign (xn ) , (12)
where Θi0 and 𝜔i0 are the nominal vectors of the uncertain-
{−1 if xi < 0 ties, and 𝛿Θi and 𝛿𝜔i are the additional inputs given as
where sign(xi ) = 0 if xi = 0 . It can be seen that the func-
1 if xi > 0 ⎧ Y T si
tion 𝜑i = 𝜓(ei )𝜎 is continuous so that the derivative of the slid- ⎪−𝛾i i ‖ ‖
, if‖Y T s ‖ > 𝛽i
⎪ ‖ T ‖ ‖ i i‖
ing variables (11) is expressed as Dynamics: 𝛿Θi = ⎨ ‖Yi si ‖ ,
‖ ‖ (18)
⎪ 𝛾i T ‖ T ‖
ṡ i = q̈ i − 𝜆𝜑̇ i . (13) ⎪− Yi si , if‖ Y s ‖ ≤ 𝛽i
⎩ 𝛽i ‖ i i‖
Based on the design of sliding surface with the sign function, s
we first state a lemma which is required in the proof of the main ⎧di i , if‖si ‖ > 𝜀i
⎪ ‖s i‖
results in this paper. Disturbance: 𝛿𝜔i = ⎨ , (19)
⎪ di si , if‖si ‖ ≤ 𝜀i
⎩ 𝜀i
Lemma 6. For any bounded variables 𝜉 = {𝜉1 , … , 𝜉n } ∈ ℝn and a
positive-definite matrix Σ ∈ ℝn×n , there exists a positive gain 𝜂 such that
1 ′ where 𝜌i , 𝛽i , di , and 𝜀i are positive constants.
𝜉 T 𝜉 + 𝜉 T 𝜓(𝜉)𝜌 ≥ 𝜂( 𝜉 T Σ𝜉)𝜌 , where 𝜌′ = (1 + 𝜌)∕2.
2 According to the dynamic model (1) and the proposed con-
troller (16), the closed-loop control systems are obtained
Proof. By expanding the 𝜉 T 𝜉 + 𝜉 T 𝜓(𝜉)𝜌 , we have
𝜌
( )𝜌 ( ) Ml ṡ l + Cl sl + kt sl + ks 𝜓 (sl )
𝜉 T 𝜉 + 𝜉 T 𝜓 𝜉 = 𝜉12 + ⋯ + 𝜉n2
̂ l − Θl ) − (𝜔̂ l − 𝜔l ) + 𝜏h ,
= Yl (Θ (20)
( )
+ ||𝜉1 || + ⋯ + ||𝜉n ||
1+𝜌 1+𝜌

𝜌
Mr ṡ r + Cr sr + kt sr + ks 𝜓 (sr )
1 ( ) ′
2 𝜌
≥ ||𝜉i,max || = ′ n||𝜉i,max ||
1+𝜌
, ̂ r − Θr ) − (𝜔̂ r − 𝜔r ) − 𝜏e .
= Yr (Θ (21)
n𝜌
DAO ET AL. 5

Next, we address the first results of the finite-time control for Since the human/environmental forces satisfying (2) are
bilateral teleoperators of the proposed controller with passive bounded, the storage function Vpass is also bounded. Accord-
force (2). ing to (25) and the bounded Vpass , with the use of Lemma 5 we
have that
Theorem 1. Consider the nonlinear bilateral teleoperators given
2kt ( 1 T ) 2kt ( 1 T )
by (1) under the controller (16), (19), (18) with the passive V̇ ≤ − sl Ml sl − sr Mr sr
human/environmental force (2) and the equivalent nominal parameter vec- 𝜆max (Ml ) 2 𝜆max (Mr ) 2
tor Θi0 , bounded term 𝜔i0 and positive control coefficients 𝛾i , di , 𝜀i , 𝛽i . { }
2kt 2kt
The coordination errors, el and er , and all signals of the closed-control −min , Vpass + Ω′ , (27)
system are uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB). Furthermore, the slid- 𝜆max (Ml ) 𝜆max (Mr )
ing variable si (t ) and tracking errors, ei (t ), converge to the corresponding
regions in finite time. where min{⋅} is the minimum value of the enclose variables, and
the constant Ω′ is given as
Proof. Consider a positive-definite Lyapunov function for the { 2kt 2kt }
closed-loop teleoperation system Ω′ = Ω + min , V0 .
𝜆max (Ml ) 𝜆max (Mr )
1 1
V = slT Ml sl + srT Mr sr + Vpass , (22) Therefore, we obtain that sl , sr are UUB based on the following
2 2
estimation with 𝜇 > 0 that
where the storage function of the passive external forces is given
as dV
≤ −𝜇V + Ω′ . (28)
dt
t t
Vpass = − 𝜏hT (𝜎 )sl (𝜎 )d 𝜎 + 𝜏eT (𝜎 )sr (𝜎 )d 𝜎 + ch + ce , Next, the finite-time convergence is considered as following
∫0 ∫0
(23) from (25) that
with ce and ch as the constant depending on the initial conditions ( 𝜌) ( 𝜌)
of the bilateral teleoperators. By taking the time-derivative of V V̇ ≤ −kt ,s slT sl + 𝜓 (sl ) − kt ,s srT sr + 𝜓 (sr ) + Ω, (29)
along the trajectories of the closed-loop systems (20) and (21),
we get that where kt ,s ∶= min{kt , ks } and 0 < 𝜌 < 1. By defining Ω′′ =
𝜌′
{ } Ω + sup{𝜆Vpass } and invoking Lemma 6, the above equation can
𝜌 1
V̇ = slT − 𝜏hT sl + slT Ṁ l sl
− Cl sl − kt sl − ks 𝜓 (sl ) be rewritten as
2
{ } (1 )𝜌′ ( 1 )𝜌′
̂ l − Θl ) − (𝜔̂ l − 𝜔l ) + 𝜏h
+slT Yl (Θ 𝜌′
V̇ ≤ −𝜆 slT Ml sl − 𝜆 srT Mr sr − 𝜆Vpass + Ω′′ . (30)
{ } 2 2
𝜌 1
+srT −Cr sr − kt sr − ks 𝜓 (sr ) + 𝜏eT sr + srT Ṁ r sr
2 Hence, based on Lemma 4, V̇ is represented as follows
{ }
+srT Yr (Θ̂ r − Θr ) − (𝜔̂ r − 𝜔r ) − 𝜏e . (24) 𝜌 ′
V̇ ≤ −𝜆V (x ) + Ω′′ , (31)
By utilizing the skew-symmetric property of the Euler-Lagrange
where 𝜌′ =(1 + 𝜌)∕2 < 1.
equations, Property 2, the above equation becomes
It can be seen that using Lemma 3, (31) implies the finite-time
∑ { convergence of sl and sr . Furthermore, thanks to the description
V̇ = ̂ i − Θ)
− kt siT si − ks siT 𝜓(si )𝜌 + siT Yi (Θ of terminal sliding surface (11), we can also consider the finite-
i={l ,r} time convergence of coordination errors. With the purpose of
} checking the ability of converging to attraction region in finite
−siT (𝜔̂ i − 𝜔i ) . (25) time of tracking errors er (t ), el (t ), we utilize the description of
finite time convergence of sl , sr when si , i = l , r are in the region
With the use of the additional inputs, (18) and (19), and follow- Δ. Resulting from (11), without loss of generality, we consider
ing the proof in [2], we achieve the following inequality only the remote side, i = r. The sliding variable sr gives that

∑ { }
sr = −ė r − 𝜆𝜓(er )𝜎 + q̇ l , (32)
V̇ ≤ − kt siT si − ks siT 𝜓(si )𝜌 + Ω, (26)
i={l ,r}
which leads to the error dynamics that
∑
where Ω = i={l ,r} (𝛽i 𝛾i + 𝜀i di )∕4 is a positive constant based
on the control gains in (18) and (19). ė r = −𝜆𝜓(er )𝜎 + q̇ l (t ) − sr . (33)
6 DAO ET AL.

Considering the Lyapunov function for the error dynamics as Corollary 1. Consider the nonlinear bilateral teleoperators
described by (1) under the controller (16), (19), (18) with bounded
1 human/environmental force (4) and the equivalent nominal parameter
Vr = erT er . (34)
2 vector Θi0 , bounded term 𝜔i0 and positive control coefficients 𝛾i , di , 𝜀i , 𝛽i .
Then, the coordination errors, el and er , and all signals of the closed-control
Taking the time-derivative of (34) gives that system are ultimately bounded.

V̇ r = erT ė r = −𝜆‖er ‖𝜎+1 + erT (q̇ l − sr ). (35)

2.2 Finite-time control for teleoperators
Because the convergence of sr to the bounded attraction region with time delays
Δ in finite time, we further obtain that
The finite-time terminal sliding mode control is studied in the
2 𝜎+1
previous section for bilateral teleoperators with disturbance.
V̇ r ≤ −2 𝜎+1 𝜆Vr 2
+ ‖er ‖𝜅s , (36)
Although the stability and finite-time convergence of both the
𝜎+1 sliding variables and coordination errors are addressed, the
where 𝜅s = sup{‖q̇ l ‖ + d0 }. As 0 < < 1, by applying finite-time convergence is obtained by using the proposed con-
2
Lemma 3, er converge to the neighborhood of the origin Ωr troller based on the additional term of sign function, 𝜑i . To
avoid the use of sign function in the sliding variable, another
2
⎧ design of sliding variables is presented in this section with the
⎡ ⎤ 𝜎+1 ⎫
⎪ ⎢ ‖er ‖𝜅s ⎥ ⎪ consideration of time delays in the communication network
Ωr = max⎨er ∣ Vr ≤ ,
⎥ ⎬
(37)
⎪ ⎢ 2
⎪
between the local and the remote robots.
⎩ ⎣ 2 𝜎+1 𝜆(1 − 𝜐) ⎦
⎭ Let us consider the sliding variable for i = {l , r} as

ft
in finite time Tr such that si = −𝜆ei + q̇ i , (40)

1−𝜎 where el (t ) = qr (t − Tr (t )) − ql (t ), er (t ) = ql (t − Tl (t )) −
ft Vr 2
(t0 ) qr (t ), and e(t ) = ql (t ) − qr (t ). It is noted that comparing
Tr = , (38)
2 to (11), si in (40) uses no sign function. The proposed controller
𝜆2 𝜎+1 (1 − 𝜐) is represented as the following equation that
where t0 illustrates the initial time. Consequently, er will con-
𝜏i = M̂ i (qi )𝜆q̇ i + Ĉ i (qi , q̇ i )𝜆ei + ĝi (qi ) − kt si
verge to a neighborhood of the origin satisfying that
+kd ė i − ks 𝜓(si )𝛽
1
⎡ ⎤ 𝜎 ̂ i − kt si + kd ė i − ks 𝜓(si )𝛽 ,
= Yi (qi , q̇ i , ei , ė i )Θ (41)
𝜅
‖er ‖ ≤ ⎢ −2𝜎 s ⎥ . (39)
⎢ ⎥
⎣ 2 𝜆(1 − 𝜐) ⎦
𝜎+1 where 𝛽 ∈ (0, 1) is a real constant.
According to the dynamic model (1) eliminating the distur-
This completes the proof for the finite-time convergence of bances and the proposed controller (41), the closed-loop con-
bilateral teleoperators and the coordination errors. □ trol systems are described as

Remark 1. As previously stated, it is necessary to satisfy the Ml ṡ l + Cl sl + kt sl

requirement of relative velocity ėi in controller [1, 10]. This limits
its practical applications in some circumstances because numer-
ical derivatives might be to noisy to compute in the controller. It
is obviously different from the existing methods in [1, 10], the
proposed controller (16) based on terminal sliding-mode con-
trol structure is first established to achieve finite time satisfac-
tions in the absence of relative velocity. Additionally, due to the
difference in choosing the Lyapunov function candidate (22)
in compare with [2] by eliminating the term eT ke e, the con-
vergence of sliding variables and tracking errors is sequentially
implemented in Theorem 1.
An extension of Theorem 1 to the case with bounded exter-
nal force can be stated in the next corollary by following the
proof in Theorem 1 and [2].
̂ l − Θl ) + kd ė l − ks 𝜓 (sl )𝛽 + 𝜏h
= Yl (Θ (42)
𝜌
Mr ṡ r + Cr sr + kt sr + ks 𝜓 (sr )
̂ r − Θr ) + kd ė r − ks 𝜓 (sr ) − 𝜏e . 𝛽
= Yr (Θ (43)
where the state variables vector of the proposed bilateral tele-
operators is chosen as x = [sl , sr , el , er ]T . Denoted by  =
([−T̄ , 0], ℝn ), the Banach space of continuous functions map-
ping the interval [−T̄ , 0] into ℝn , with the topology of uni-
form convergence. Let xt = x(t + 𝜙) ∈ , −T̄ ≤ 𝜙 ≤ 0 as the
state of the system [38]. We assume in this paper that x(𝜙) =
𝜂(𝜙), 𝜂 ∈  and all signals belong to 2e , the extended 2
space. Consequently, we state the next result in Theorem 2.
DAO ET AL. 7

Theorem 2. Consider the nonlinear bilateral teleoperators given For the sake of utilizing Lemma 6 for the estimation of
by (1) without disturbances, for example, 𝜔l = 𝜔r = 0, under the con- the derivation of Lyapunov function, it is necessary to deter-
troller (41) and Θ̂ i = Θi0 + 𝛿Θi with the robust additional input (18). mine that all signals in the closed-loop system are bounded.
For the equivalent nominal parameter vector Θi0 and passive force (2), The fact is that, according to the result in [2] and (48), we
the position tracking error el , er and the manipulator velocity q̇l , ė r , are imply that V̇ (xt ) ≤ −kmin ||x||2 + k𝜖 , where kmin > 0 and k𝜖 =
ultimately uniformly bounded if the control coefficients satisfy the conditions (𝛽r 𝜌r + 𝛽l 𝜌l )∕4 being positive constant.
t
that Because of the finite value of terms ∫t −T (t ) q̇ iT (𝜎)q̇ i (𝜎)d 𝜎 and
i
( 1 ) t
2𝜆kt ∫t −T (𝜎 − t + T i )q̇ iT (𝜎)q̇ i (𝜎)d 𝜎 + 𝜆kd eiT ei in the Lya-
𝜅l = kt − kd Tdll > 𝜆kt T̄ , (44) i
2 punov candidate function, as well as the assumption of passive
( 1 ) force and all signals of the closed-loop system are bounded,
𝜅r = kr − kd Tdrl > 𝜆kt T̄ . (45) according to (48) we obtain the following estimation by using
2
Lemma (6) that
Furthermore, the convergence time of the closed-loop bilateral teleoperators
𝛽′ ( )𝛽 ′
is finite. V̇ (x) ≤ −Vpass + Ω′′′ − 𝜐2 𝜆kt eT e

Proof. Consider the Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional given as ∑ { ( )𝛽 ′

− (𝜆max {M })−1 s T Ms + 𝜐1 𝜆kd eiT ei
follows
i∈{l ,r}
(
1 ∑
t ( )𝛽 ′
V (xt ) = siT Mi si + kd q̇ T (𝜎 )q̇ i (𝜎 )d 𝜎 t ( )
2 ∫t −T (t ) i −𝜐2 2𝜆kt 𝜎 − t + T i q̇ iT (𝜎 )q̇ i (𝜎 )d 𝜎
i={l ,r} i ∫t −T
i
t ( )
+ 2𝜆kt 𝜎 − t + T i q̇ iT (𝜎 )q̇ i (𝜎 )d 𝜎 ( )𝛽 ′
∫t −T̄
t }
i −𝜐3 kd q̇ iT (𝜎 )q̇ i (𝜎 )d 𝜎 , (49)
) ∫t −T (t )
+ 𝜆kd eiT ei + 𝜆kt + Vpass .
i
eT e (46)
where 𝜐1 , 𝜐2 , 𝜐3 are positive constants, and Ω′′′ =
By taking the time-derivative of the functional V (xt ) along the sup{kt slT sl + kt srT sr + Δ′ − Δ′′ } with
trajectory of the closed-loop system (42) and (43), we get that
( ) ( )
( Δ′ = −𝜆2 kt erT er − 𝜉r − Λ q̇ lT q̇ l − 𝜉r − Λ q̇ rT q̇ r + Ω,
∑ 𝛽
V̇ (xt ) = −ks siT 𝜓 (si ) − kt siT si + kd siT ė i ( )𝛽 ′
i={l ,r}
t ( )
Δ′′ = −𝜐2 2𝜆kt 𝜎 − t + T i q̇ iT (𝜎 )q̇ i (𝜎 )d 𝜎
( ) ∫t −T
+siT Yi Θ̂ i − Θi + 𝜆kd eT ė i + 1 kd q̇ T q̇ i i
i 2 i
( )𝛽 ′
t
1
− kd fi (t )q̇ iT (t − Ti (t ))q̇ i (t − Ti (t ) + 𝜆kt T̄i q̇ iT q̇ i −𝜐3 kd q̇ iT (𝜎 )q̇ i (𝜎 )d 𝜎
2 ∫t −T (t )
) i
t
( )𝛽 ′ 𝛽′
−𝜆kt q̇ iT (𝜎 )q̇ i (𝜎 )d 𝜎 + 2𝜆kt eT e.̇ (47) −𝜐2 𝜆kt eT e − Vpass .
∫t −T̄
i

Therefore, based on Lemma 4, the inequality (49) can be rep-

It can be seen that due to the additional term −ks 𝜓(si )𝛽 in pro- resented as follows
posed control scheme
∑ (41), the derivative of V (xt ) is extended
with the term i={l ,r} −ks siT 𝜓(si )𝛽 in (47). Based on the work ( )𝛽 ′ 1+𝛽
in [2], the following estimation can be obtained such that V̇ (xt ) ≤ −𝜆V z + Ω′′′ with 𝛽 ′ = ∈ (0, 1). (50)
2
∑ (
V̇ (xt ) ≤ − kt siT 𝜓(si )𝛽 − 𝜆2 kt eiT ei It can be seen that using Lemma 3, according to estima-
i={l ,r}
tion (50) we imply the finite time convergence of not only sl ,
) sr but also er (t ), el (t ). □
−(𝜅i − Λ )q̇ iT q̇ i + Ω, (48)
Remark 2. It is worth emphasizing that due to no consideration
∑
where Ω = i={l ,r} (𝛽i 𝛾i + 𝜀i di )∕4 as defined in Theorem 1, of property of BTs, the controller in [1, 27, 28, 37] employed the
and 𝜅i are given as in (44) and (45). Neural Networks to approximate the dynamic uncertainties and
8 DAO ET AL.
disturbance. In contrast to the existing methods in [1, 27, 28,
37], the proposed control algorithms (16), (41) utilize Property
1 and (19) to guarantee the tracking errors and sliding variables
are UUB without neural networks. The fact is that Property 1 is
utilized to lump uncertainties into vector Θi . For this reason, the
adaptation laws (18,19) are proposed to complete the proposed
controllers (16,41) without using neural network structure.
Remark 3. Unlike the work in [2], this work is extended to obtain
finite-time convergence in not only the sliding variables but also
tracking errors. Furthermore, the constraint forces 𝜏h , 𝜏e in (1)
are considered in many related works, such as constraint forces
can be computed to implement the motion/force control [39],
the environmental torque is estimated by RBF neural network
structure [37]. On the other hand, the Neural Networks (NN)
was also employed in approximating the uncertainties includ-
ing unknown parameters and disturbances in remote, local sides
[37]. Moreover, the finite time tracking problem has not been
discussed and the tracking problem was only considered for
each sides [37]. The transmitted information required not only
the trajectories qr (t ), ql (t ) but also the power signals in the com-
munication channel [37]. However, it is obviously different from
the existing methods in [37, 39]; the proposed finite-time con-
trollers handle the influence of constraint forces without esti-
mating them.
It is worth emphasizing that although this work proposes the
controllers in (16), (41) in the absence of operating torque 𝜏h (t )
and environmental torque 𝜏e (t ), the stability is still guaranteed in
the cases of passive force (Theorem 1, 2) and non-passive force
(Corollary 2). As a result, the transmitted information is only
considered with trajectories qr (t ), ql (t ) and without power sig-
nals in the communication channel. Regarding the application
of SMC method, authors [40] presented predictive-algorithm-
based discrete time SMC for linear system. The work in [10]
developed the finite-time convergence based on terminal SMC
to fulfill position synchronization error control design with con-
stant time delays. In order to deal with the challenge of variable
time delays, the Lyapunov function candidate is proposed as in
Equation (46) with more integral term to be utilized for vari-
able time delay. The control scheme in [4] was developed under
traditional Lyapunov technique using the position velocity to be
combined error signals. In contrast to the existing methods [4],
the proposed method discusses the finite time controllers for
BTs with variable time delay and without relative velocity. Addi-
tionally, Lemma 3 is able to determine that the chattering phe-
nomenon and tracking problem, convergence time, the bound
of attraction region can be adjusted by coefficient 𝜆 in the slid-
ing variable (40).
Corollary 2. Consider the nonlinear bilateral teleoperators given
by (1) without disturbances, for example, 𝜔l = 𝜔r = 0, under the con-
troller (41) and Θ̂ i = Θi0 + 𝛿Θi with the robust additional input (18).
For the equivalent nominal parameter vector Θi0 and non-passive force (3),
the teleoperation system is stable if the control coefficients satisfy the condi-
tions (44) and (45). Additionally, the position tracking error el , er and the
manipulator velocity q̇l , ė r are bounded.
3 VALIDATION RESULTS
3.1 Numerical examples
The proposed finite-time controllers in Sections 2.1 and 2.2 are
demonstrated to confirm the efficiency via numerical simula-
tions in this section. The local and remote robots are considered
as two-degrees of freedom (2-DoF) planar robotic manipulators
whose dynamics are referred to [41]. The physical parameters
of the robotic manipulators are given as Ml = [1.4, 1.0] kg, Il
= [0.22, 0.24] kg m2 , Ll = [0.6, 0.4] m, Mr = [1.8, 1.6] kg, Ir =
[0.35, 0.33] kg m2 , Lr = [0.8, 0.6]m, and g = 9.8 m/s2 . Thus,
the vectors of the actual dynamic parameters are Θl = [0.99,
0.12, 0.28, 1.02, 0.20]T and Θr = [2.14, 0.38, 0.47, 2.0, 0.48]T .
Additionally, both the local and remote robots are considered
to be subject to uncertainties and external disturbance resulting
from unmodeled dynamics and network uncertainties. The dis-
turbances are given as wi (t ) = 0.3 + 0.2 sin(2t ) + 0.3 sin(20t ) −
0.2 sin(10t ) + 0.3 sin(21t ). The fixed nominal parameters are
chosen equal as Θl 0 = [0.56, 0.23, 0.19, 0.97, 0.18]T , Θr0 =
[1.63, 0.42, 0.44, 1.95, 0.5]T , and for the disturbance we selected
wi0 (t ) = 0.2 + 0.3 sin(15t ).
In the simulations, the teleoperation is in free-motion for t =
0 to 10 s where the human operator applies no force on the local
robot. By the proposed controller, the local and remote robots
coordinate to each other. After t = 10 s, the human operator
exerts a spring-damper force [3, 6 43] to manipulate the local
robot between different set-points with the spring and damping
gains selected as 50 Nm/rad and 2 Nms/rad. For t = 10 to 25
s, the local robot is commanded to a configuration such that the
x-direction of the end-effector on the remote robot contacts
a wall in the remote environment. Thus, the remote robot is
blocked under the environment force, and the local robot, oper-
ated by the human operator, is also under the influence of the
external force. After t = 25 s, the human commands the local
to another configuration where the remote robot moves away
from contacting the wall.
For the control approach in Section 2.1, the control gains are
considered to be identical for both robots such that 𝜆 = 2, kt =
20, ks = 40, and kd = 25. The bilateral teleoperators are imple-
mented with the initial conditions ql (0) = [1.1, 0.9]T rad, qr (0)
= [1.0, 1.2]T rad, q̇ i (0) = 0 rad/s, and q̈ i (0) = 0 rad/s 2 . The
joint coordinates and tracking errors are illustrated in Figure 1.
It shows that the proposed system is stable and able to reach
the desired configuration commanded by the human operator,
where the tracking errors and velocities are ultimately bounded.
Furthermore, if the bilateral teleoperation system in free motion
(𝜏h = 0 and 𝜏e = 0), then the tracking errors are ensured to con-
verge to neighborhood of zero in finite time. Additionally, dur-
ing hard contact, both 𝜏h and 𝜏e are not zero, the tracking errors
are relatively large due to force reflection from the remote robot
to the human operator. The human and environment torques
are illustrated in Figure 2.
To highlight the improvement of convergence speed and
precise tracking ability of the controller in Section 2.2,
we make the comparison of the two control methods as
follows:
DAO ET AL. 9

1st joints (rad) q q 0.55

l1 r1
1

0.5
0.5
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0.45
2nd joints (rad)

1.2 0 10 20 30 40
1
0.8 q
0.52
0.6 l2
q
0.4 r2
0.51
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

0.2 e e 0.5
Errors (rad)

1 2
0 10 20 30 40
0 time (s)
-0.2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 FIGURE 3 Communication delays in the simulation of the bilateral
time (s)
teleoperation system

FIGURE 1 Joint angles and tracking errors in the simulation of

finite-time controller in Theorem 1
150

1st Joint External Torque

h1
100
e1

50
External torques (mNm)

mNm
100
0
50 -50

0 -100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
150
-50 2nd Joint External Torque
h2
100
-100 e2
50
mNm

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0
External torques (mNm)

100 -50

-100
50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
time (s)
0
FIGURE 4 External torques from the local human and remote
-50
environment to the robots in the simulation of a previous work [42]
-100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
time (s) The simulation results of C1 are shown in the Figures 4–7,
and those of C2 are shown in Figures 8–11. Firstly, the most
FIGURE 2 External torques from the local human and remote noticeable difference between Figures 4 and 8 is that it is more
environment to the robots in the simulation of finite-time controller in
Theorem 1
easy in C2 than in C1 for the human to feel a sudden change
of the external disturbances 𝜏dist in the remote environment
in duration 18(s) ≤ t ≤ 21(s). This confirms that the proposed
C1: The neural-network-based PD control design proposed
[42]. The control gains is selected as follows: Kv = K p = Kd =
1.5
25, P𝜀 = 1.5. The neural network has 10 hidden neurons, 10 q
l1

inputs, 2 outputs, G = 100; 𝜅 = 0.1. q

1st Joints (rad)

r1
1
C2: For the finite-time controller with time delays proposed
in Section 2.2, the control gains are chosen as kt = 15, ks = 45, 0.5
kd = 5, 𝛽 = 0.5, and 𝜆 = 3.
The simulation scenarios are similar to the above simulation 0
except for that there exist the varying time delays given as Fig- 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

ure 3. In particular, these time-varying delays are assumed to be 1.2

2nd Joints (rad)

Tl = 0.5 + 0.02sin(3t ) + 0.03sin(4t ) s, Tr = 0.51 + 0.1sin(2t ) s. 1

0.8
Additionally, in the interaction duration between the slave
0.6
manipulator and the remote environment, there is a sudden dis- 0.4
q
l2
q
turbance affecting the slave manipulator as follows: 0.2
r2

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
{ time (s)
[60 60]T (Nm) if 17 ≤ t ≤ 20(s)
𝜏dist = . (51)
[0 0]T (Nm) otherwise FIGURE 5 Joint angles in the simulation of a previous work [42]
10 DAO ET AL.

External Torques (mNm)

el1 100
Coordination Errors
Master Side (rad) 0.5
e h1
l2
50 e1

1st Joint
0 0

-50
-0.5 -100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0.4

External Torques (mNm)

e 100
Coordination Errors

r1
Slave Side (rad)

e h2
0.2 r2
50 e2

2nd Joint
0 0

-0.2 -50

-0.4 -100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
time (s) time (s)

FIGURE 6 Tracking errors in the simulation of a previous work [42] FIGURE 8 External torques from the local human and remote
environment to the robots in the simulation of finite-time controller in
Theorem 2
150
Control Torques (mNm)

l1
100
r1

1st Joint Positions (rad)

1st Joint

50 q
l1
1.2 qr1
0
1
-50
0.8
-100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0.6
Control Torques (mNm)

100 0.4
l2
50 r2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
1.2
2nd Joint

2nd Joint Positions (rad)

0
1
-50
0.8
-100 0.6
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 q
l2
time (s) 0.4 q
r2

FIGURE 7 Control torques in the simulation of a previous work [42] 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

time (s)

FIGURE 9 Joint angles in the simulation of finite-time controller in

control method provides more certain degree of transparency
performance during teleoperation compared to the method
in [42].
Secondly, a comparison of Figures 5 and 6 and Figures 9
and 10 reveals that C2 is better than C1. To specify, the tran-
sient response of the former is faster than that of the latter, and
further the former has better capacity of coordinating position
than, that is, has more precise tracking ability than, the latter as
seen from the simulation. Next, the control inputs of both C1
and C2 are illustrated in Figures 7 and 11, respectively, which
are bounded, smooth, and feasible. A comparison between Fig-
ures 8 and 10 points out that the tracking errors e are relatively
large during the slaver robot hard contacting with the environ-
ment. This situation is due to the force reflection from the
remote robot to the local robot against the human force pushing
toward the desired configuration.
3.2 Experiments
To show the effectiveness and performance of the proposed
finite-time teleoperator in practice, the experiments have been
implemented by using two robotic manipulators, called PHAN-
Theorem 2
ToM Omni. PHANToM Omni is a haptic device with six rev-
olute joints, six-degrees of freedom (6-DoF). In the implemen-
tation, the first three joints are fully actuated, while the three
remainder joints are constraints. The proposed finite-time con-
trol program is written in C++ language with Open-Haptic API
being utilizing to acquire joint position/velocity and apply the
computed torques from the proposed method. The experimen-
tal setup is illustrated in [2], and the robots are connected to a
personal computer (PC) via IEEE-1394 interface where all the
control algorithms are implemented in the same computer.
The experiments of Section 2.1 is conducted under the con-
trol gains kt = 10, ks = 30, 𝜌 = 0.5, 𝜎 = 0.5, 𝜆 = 75, and di =
𝜌i = 10. The experiment results of this control method are illus-
trated in Figures 12–14. By observing Figure 12, it shows that
the joint positions of the remote robots can track the position
of the local robot in the presence of disturbances. It is demon-
strated that the tracking errors converge to neighborhood of
the origin in finite-time for a delay-free case as shown in Fig-
ure 13. The controlled inputs are illustrated in Figure 14 which
are bounded and smooth.
DAO ET AL. 11

0.4
at Master Side (rad) e
Coordination Errors

Local (rad)
l1 0
0.2 e
l2

0 -0.5
1st joint 2nd joint 3rd joint
-0.2
-1
-0.4 0 5 10 15 20 25
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Remote (rad)
0.4 0.2
e
Coordination Errors
at Slvae Side (rad)

r1
er2
0
0.2
-0.2
0 -0.4
1st joint 2nd joint 3rd joint
-0.6
-0.2
-0.8
0 5 10 15 20 25
-0.4
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 time (s)
time (s)

FIGURE 13 Coordination and tracking errors of the finite-time bilateral

FIGURE 10 Tracking errors in the simulation of finite-time controller in teleoperation system using the proposed controller in Theorem 1
Theorem 2

150
Control Torques (mNm)

200

Local (mNm)
l1
100
r1
1st Joint

50 0
0

-50 -200 1st joint 2nd joint 3rd joint

-100
0 5 10 15 20 25
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Remote (mNm)
200
Control Torques (mNm)

100
l2
50 0
2nd Joint

r2
0
1st joint 2nd joint 3rd joint
-50 -200
0 5 10 15 20 25
-100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
time (s)
time (s)
FIGURE 14 Controlled torques on local and remote robots in the
FIGURE 11 Control torques in the simulation of finite-time controller in finite-time teleoperator using the finite-time controller in Theorem 1
Theorem 2

The experiment of the proposed finite-time controller with

1
1 st joint (rad)

time delays, stated in Section 2.2, is conducted under the control

0.5 gains kt = 10, kd = 3, ks = 30, 𝛽 = 0.5, 𝜆 = 50, di = 𝜌i = 10,
and 𝛽i = 0.1. The experimental results of this control method
0
are illustrated in Figures 15–17. Under the presence of time
0 5 10 15 20 25 delay as in the simulation, the tracking errors are shown to be
able to converge to a neighborhood of zero in finite time in
2 nd joint (rad)

1
the absence of external force. Additionally, if the human oper-
ator exerts a force on the local robot so that the tracking error
0.5
between the remote and the local robots are relatively large, then
the control inputs are bounded and smooth. The stable and
0
tracking performance from the experimental results demon-
0 5 10 15 20 25
strate the efficacy and performance of the proposed finite-time
1 controller for bilateral teleoperators.
3 d joint (rad)

0.5

0
4 CONCLUSION
0 5 10 15 20 25 This paper has proposed two novel control methods for bilat-
time (s) eral teleoperation systems to cope with internal uncertainties,
external disturbances, and communication delays. These two
FIGURE 12 Joint angles of the local and remote robots in the
methods ensure the convergence of tracking errors to a neigh-
experiments using the proposed controller in Theorem 1
borhood of zero in a finite time and, respectively, correspond
12 DAO ET AL.

1 to delay-free case and varying time delay. The cases of non-

1 st joint (rad) passive and bounded human/environmental forces are consid-
0.5 ered under the proposed finite-time control algorithm. Addi-
Local robot tionally, to eliminate the acceleration measurements, novel slid-
0 Remote robot
ing variables have been defined with the proof of stability and
0 5 10 15 20 25 finite-time convergence. Numerical simulations and experiment
results are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed
approaches. The future work of this research encompasses the
2 nd joint (rad)

0.6
0.4 study of transparency in the presence of time delays and system
0.2 Local robot uncertainties with the guarantee of finite-time convergence.
Remote robot
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
0.6 This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Science and
3 rd joint (rad)

0.4
Technology (MOST), Taiwan, under Grant MOST 110-2636-
Local root
E-006-005, MOST 109-2636-E-006-019, the Higher Education
0.2
Remote robot Sprout Project, Ministry of Education to the Headquarters of
0 University Advancement at National Cheng Kung University
0 5 10 15 20 25 (NCKU).
time (s)
ORCID
FIGURE 15 Joint angles of the local and remote robots in the Phuong Nam Dao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8333-5572
experiments using the proposed finite-time controller with time-varying delays
Yen-Chen Liu https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2778-5859
in Theorem 2.

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How to cite this article: Dao PN, Nguyen VT, Liu
Yen-Chen. Finite-time convergence for bilateral
teleoperation systems with disturbance and time-varying
delays. IET Control Theory Appl. 2021;1–13.
https://doi.org/10.1049/cth2.12155