A modular teleoperation system for reliable and safer robotic manipulation with integrated force and visual feedback

This paper presents a new modular teleoperation system which is able to integrate robot manipulator, gripper, dual force sensors, and camera to provide both force and visual feedback for enhanced operator awareness during contact-rich robotic manipulation. A custom graphical user interface is also designed to enable real-time control, supported by force and visual feedback. The system architecture is modular and distributed, using Ethernet and data distribution service communication to achieve the synchronised sensor-actuation interaction between the working devices. The unique addition of vertically stacked force sensors provides the operator with tactile-like insight into object alignment, symmetry, and surface contact. To validate the proposed system, experiments are conducted with ROS2, a UR10e collaborative robot, Robotiq 2F-85 gripper, load cells, Intel Realsense camera, and a diverse set of objects. The operator’s performance is evaluated across multiple trials per object. The results show that the system enhances the teleoperation processes and facilitates the grasping positioning, while ensuring safe placing and releasing of the grasped objects.