Some Remarks on Smith Predictor-based Control with Distance Feedback for a 3-dof Haptic System with Distributed Delays

This paper focuses on the construction of a Smith predictor for network-based haptic systems. Roughly speaking, the idea is to use a predictor just on the haptic side in order to compensate the viscosity effect and to provide an accurate feeling in the case of contacts. A new approach is presented by using the available information on the distance from the virtual reality simulator and introducing it in the predictor in order to maintain the similarity between the “real” and the “predicted model”. In order to validate the approach, experimental results are presented for constant and random varying delays (normal distributed and gamma with gap distributed), for a simple virtual environment and for a virtual box.