Introduction

This chapter introduces the motivation for shared control, by mentioning the advantages of autonomous control and pure teleoperation and, how these the two modes are combined in the mixed-initiative paradigm. The need for transparency in time-delayed haptic shared control is also motivated: the operator improves his perception of the forces felt by the robot from the real environment and the virtual support from the autonomous system. The main research gap identified is that the stability properties of mixed initiative haptic shared control approach have not been analyzed widely while improving transparency of the time-delayed teleoperation loop. The contribution of this ‘monograph’ is a framework for shared control, which is modular and with high force transparency, while ensuring stability of the overall system, that includes (a) large time-delays in teleoperation, and (b) smooth adaptation of gains for authority allocation.