  With the rising popularity of telerobotic systems, the focus on transparency
with regards to haptic perception is also increasing. Transparency, however,
represents a theoretical ideal as most bilateral force-reflecting telerobots
introduce dynamics (stiffness and damping) between the operator and the
environment. To achieve true dexterity, it will be essential to understand how
humans embody the dynamics of these telerobots and thereby distinguish them
from the environment they are exploring. In this short manuscript, we introduce
a novel single degree-of-freedom testbed designed to perform psychophysical and
task performance assessments of kinesthetic perception during telerobotic
exploration. The system is capable of being configured as a rigid mechanical
teleoperator, a dynamic mechanical teleoperator, and an electromechanicaal
teleoperator. We performed prefatory system identification and found that the
system is capable of simulating telerobotic exploration necessary to understand
the impact of master-slave dynamics on kinesthetic perception.
