Numerical Evaluation of Transparency in Teleoperation Systems

Evaluation of the performance of teleoperation systems plays an important role in assessing the efficacy and reliability of such systems. The evaluation is usually performed based on factors such as stability, transparency, and user satisfaction. However, very few studies have addressed the numerical evaluation of transparency in teleoperation systems so far. This paper presents a novel method to numerically assess the transparency of teleoperation systems based on representing recorded experimental data algebraically by fitting parametric curves using Elliptic Fourier Descriptors (EFD). The EFD coefficients are used to compute the Hybrid Matrix of the teleoperation system, which provides a metric for judging how transparent a teleoperation system is. This paper validates the proposed method using real experimental position and force data for teleoperation systems with and without time delay, as well as providing an analysis of the effect of the number of harmonics on the calculation of the Hybrid Matrix.