Haptic Teleoperation goes Wireless: Evaluation and Benchmarking of a High-Performance Low-Power Wireless Control Technology

Communication delays and packet losses are commonly investigated issues in the area of robotic teleoperation. This paper investigates application of a novel low-power wireless control technology (GALLOP) in a haptic teleoperation scenario developed to aid in nuclear decommissioning. The new wireless control protocol, which is based on an off-the-shelf Bluetooth chipset, is compared against standard implementations of wired and wireless TCP/IP data transport. Results, through objective and subjective data, show that GALLOP can be a reasonable substitute for a wired TCP/IP connection, and performs better than a standard wireless TCP/IP method based on Wi-Fi connectivity.