Robotics and Mechatronics (RaM) group.Project: Predictive Avatar Control and Feedback.Topic: MODEL-MEDIATED TELEOPERATION OF A FLEXIBLE OBJECT WITH A GRIPPER-MOUNTED TELEROBOT.Synopsis: Teleoperation systems with haptic feedback can be used to accomplish tasks requiring human levels of dexterity over long distances. Many Model-Mediated Teleoperation systems present in literature often treat interaction between telerobot and environment as an interaction at a specific point. However, especially when manipulating objects, dexterous interaction, for humans, involves the use of hands, which interact with the environment at many different points. The hypothesis behind this assignment is that most objects that humans interact with in day-to-day life are such that the object dynamics can be separated into flexible (contact) dynamics and inertial dynamics. Furthermore, the flexible dynamics should be identifiable with a gripper, and the inertial dynamics should be identifiable using motion and force data from the end-effector on which the gripper is mounted. This assignment focuses on proving or disproving this hypothesis.Practically, this involved:1. Investigating the importance of various parasitic dynamics involved in the gripping estimation.2. Designing an estimation technique for estimating inertial and contact dynamics of an object using a gripper and taking into account any identified parasitic dynamics3. Validating the method through experiments