What is Disturbance Observer (DOB)

Accessibility for remote locations could be easily overcome by teleoperation. When manipulating an object at a remote place, it is beneficial if the operator is capable of feeling the force and position information including environmental object impedance for successful remote manipulation. In this chapter, bilateral control, based on acceleration architecture is explained from the basics starting from the human's haptic perception. The sensorless sensing mechanism “Reaction Torque Observer” is applied to the gripper which enables the operator to feel the remote environment while on remote manipulation. “Disturbance Observer” which is a popular control tool used to attain robustness is also successfully adopted for this application. Further, authors introduce force lock during bilateral teleoperation, which facilitate handling delicate objects. Practical as well as experimental results are discussed and the chapter concludes with suggestions for possible future research directions.