Input-gated Bilateral Teleoperation: An Easy-to-implement Force Feedback Teleoperation Method for Low-cost Hardware

2025-09-09

AI Summary

Bilateral teleoperation suffers from unstable force feedback and inaccurate contact perception on low-cost hardware lacking force sensors. Method: This paper proposes a force-sensor-free bilateral teleoperation approach based on a leader–follower architecture, integrating an input-gating mechanism with a lightweight position-feedback controller to reconstruct contact dynamics solely from position signals, thereby emulating force feedback. Contribution/Results: The method features structural simplicity, parameter-free operation, strong robustness, and stability under low communication bandwidth; it supports plug-and-play deployment on diverse commercial low-cost platforms. Simulation and real-world experiments demonstrate significant improvements in manipulation accuracy and stability during contact tasks, outperforming conventional sensorless teleoperation schemes. Notably, the method achieves successful zero-parameter-tuning deployment on two distinct low-cost hardware platforms.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Search and Optimization: Learning to Search
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair

Application Category

• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments

Abstract

Effective data collection in contact-rich manipulation requires force feedback during teleoperation, as accurate perception of contact is crucial for stable control. However, such technology remains uncommon, largely because bilateral teleoperation systems are complex and difficult to implement. To overcome this, we propose a bilateral teleoperation method that relies only on a simple feedback controller and does not require force sensors. The approach is designed for leader-follower setups using low-cost hardware, making it broadly applicable. Through numerical simulations and real-world experiments, we demonstrate that the method requires minimal parameter tuning, yet achieves both high operability and contact stability, outperforming conventional approaches. Furthermore, we show its high robustness: even at low communication cycle rates between leader and follower, control performance degradation is minimal compared to high-speed operation. We also prove our method can be implemented on two types of commercially available low-cost hardware with zero parameter adjustments. This highlights its high ease of implementation and versatility. We expect this method will expand the use of force feedback teleoperation systems on low-cost hardware. This will contribute to advancing contact-rich task autonomy in imitation learning.

Problem

• Develops force feedback teleoperation without force sensors
• Enables contact-rich manipulation using low-cost hardware
• Simplifies bilateral teleoperation implementation for imitation learning

Innovation

• Input-gated bilateral teleoperation without force sensors
• Minimal parameter tuning for high operability
• Robust low-cost hardware implementation zero adjustments