Force controller tuning for a master–slave system with proximity based haptic feedback

This paper deals with a master-slave robotic system with haptic feedback that has been recently proposed by the authors for supporting the clinician during the execution of immerse ultrasound examinations. The focus is on providing additional details on how to tune the force feedback controller, in order to guarantee stability of the overall control system. After arguing the stability conditions by exploiting an approach based on the small gain theorem, a controller tuning procedure based on the identification of the human impedance parameters is proposed.