Development of a Pneumatic Leader-Follower System with Force Feedback

In this paper, we propose a leader-follower system that enables position control and force feedback without directly attaching a sensor to a pneumatic actuator, and describe the evaluation of its characteristics. Leader-follower systems have gained attention as remote operation systems for tasks in harsh environments where direct human operation is impossible. Pneumatic actuators have excellent environmental resistance to radiation and noise. The proposed system performs bilateral control without directly attaching a sensor to the actuator by estimating displacement and external force from the values of air flow and pressure flowing to the pneumatic actuator. The characteristics of the proposed system were evaluated through simulations and experiments on actual apparatus. As a result, we confirmed that the follower displacement tracks the leader displacement, that the external force was properly feedback, however that a small error occurred between the leader and follower displacements in steady state.