Learning Contact for Haptic Feedback: Switching X-Lateral Teleoperators

In this paper, we propose X-lateral teleoperation: a novel hybrid unilateral-bilateral teleoperation framework. Bilateral teleoperation enables kinesthetic coupling between the operator and the remote environment with haptic feedback. However, in free motion, unlike unilateral teleoperators, bi- lateral teleoperators reflect undesirable operational forces to the operator. The proposed X-lateral teleoperation framework benefits from a learning-based contact detection algorithm which triggers switching from unilateral teleoperation in free motion to bilateral teleoperation in contact. We also present a neural network based two-class classification technique to detect contacts even with environments not seen in training. In exper- iments with linear motors and Phantom Omni devices, using sensorless force estimation, we show that the proposed method can decrease operational forces significantly over transparency- optimized bilateral architectures.