Analysis of High-Rate Wireless Links for Tele-Haptics Applications

Telehaptic systems aim at providing a higher level of immersion into a remote environment by adding an ability of physical interaction with the objects and/or people in the distant space. A system consists of an operator and a remote robotic device equipped with sensors and actuators which can transmit interaction parameters to the operator upon the contact with the environment. Telehaptic systems are mainly used for remote training, tele-operation and tele-presence, tele-surgery, etc., where it is often required to have a feedback from the tele-operator in real-time. A higher frequency of communication, in contrast to audio and video modalities, is also necessary to maintain the stability of the global control loop. A recent trend in telehaptics is to enable haptic data communication over high-rate wireless links in order to create ambient haptic experience (wearable haptics). In this paper, we analyze adaptability of high-speed wireless communication protocols to the transmission of haptic data. Furthermore, we present a taxonomy of problems in telehaptics and currently existing approaches to solve them.