Remote Operation with Haptic Force and Virtual Proxy for an Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator System

This paper aims to investigate a smooth teleoperation method for the underwater vehicle-manipulator system. First, a coordinated mapping control method for the vehicle is presented. The haptic force is considered to help assist the operation. Then, two mapping modes are used to teleoperate the manipulator: when the end-effector needs to move in a large area, two virtual points and a spring-damping system are implemented to filter the operator's hand jitter and limit the manipulator's speed; when the end-effector needs to move in a small area, a position increment control method with a small proportional coefficient is used to improve the precision. Finally, the simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed teleoperation method.