Simulation and control for telerobots in space medicine

Human space exploration is continuously advancing despite the current financial difficulties, and the new missions are targeting the Moon and the Mars with more effective human–robot collaborative systems. The continuous development of robotic technology should lead to the advancement of automated technology, including space medicine. Telesurgery has already proved its effectiveness through various telemedicine procedures on Earth, and it has the potential to provide medical assistance in space as well. Aeronautical agencies have already conducted numerous experiments and developed various setups to push the boundaries of teleoperation under extreme conditions. Different control schemes have been proposed and tested to facilitate and enhance telepresence and to ensure transparency, sufficient bandwidth and latency-tolerance. This paper focuses on the modeling of a generic telesurgery setup, supported by a cascade control approach. The minimalistic models were tested with linear and PID-fuzzy control options to provide a simple, universal and scalable solution for the challenges of telesurgery over large distances. In our simulations, the control structures were capable of providing good dynamic performance indices and robustness with respect to the gain in the human operator model. This is a promising result towards the support of future teleoperational missions. ► The modeling of a generic telesurgery setup supported by a cascade control approach is proposed. ► PID-fuzzy controllers built around a parallel connection of simple fuzzy blocks are given. ► The linear and fuzzy control systems provide good dynamic performance indices. ► Fuzzy control ensures improved robustness with respect to the gain in the human operator model.