Latency smoothing for teleoperation systems

A teleoperation system for electronic remote control of a slave device, comprising:

• a control unit communicatively coupled to the slave device which is remotely located from the control unit, where at least one of a computing device of the control unit and a controller of the slave device is configured to:
• measure an inherent latency of a communications link of the teleoperation system which varies unpredictably over at least a first window of time, where the inherent latency comprises a latency between a time a control message is sent from the control unit to a time the control message is received by the slave device;
• analyze the inherent latency, which was previously measured, to determine a first reference value that can be used to increase a predictability of telematic operations for conveying information over a network to remotely control of the slave device;
• use the first reference value to select an amount of controlled latency to be added to the communications link at each of a plurality of time points;
• and
• add the amount of controlled latency to the communications link at each of the plurality of time points so as to increase the predictability of the telematic operations, where the amount of controlled latency added at a first time point of the plurality of time points is different than the amount of controlled latency added at a second time point of the plurality of time points.