Event-triggered control and communication for single-master multi-slave teleoperation systems with Try-Once-Discard protocol

Single-master multi-slave (SMMS) teleoperation systems can perform multiple tasks remotely in a shorter time, cover large-scale areas, and adapt more easily to single-point failures, thereby effectively encompassing a broader range of applications. As the number of slave manipulators sharing a communication network increases, the limitation of communication bandwidth becomes critical. To alleviate bandwidth usage, the Try-Once-Discard (TOD) scheduling protocol and event-triggered mechanisms are often employed separately. In this paper, we combine both strategies to optimize network bandwidth and energy consumption for SMMS teleoperation systems. Specifically, we propose event-triggered control and communication schemes for a class of SMMS teleoperation systems using the TOD scheduling protocol. Considering dynamic uncertainties, the unavailability of relative velocities, and time-varying delays, we develop adaptive controllers with virtual observers based on event-triggered schemes to achieve master-slave synchronization. Stability criteria for the SMMS teleoperation systems under these event-triggered control and communication schemes are established, demonstrating that Zeno behavior is excluded. Finally, experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.