Design of a Cost Effective Haptic Interface

Haptic interfaces are human machine interface devices used for giving feedback sensations to an operator; they are used in a wide range of applications, like aeronautic fields, remote operation of manipulators in hostile or dangerous environments, and recently also for micro assembly machines and new surgery equipments. The major advantage of this technology is the improved performance of the operator himself, in fact it has been proven that having tactile sensation combined with visual information shortens reaction time. In this paper the authors show the process used to build a prototype of a master for tele-operation with force feedback on the operator. Once specifications on nominal force, bandwidth and angular displacement of the stick were established, a comparison between different kinematic solutions was carried out and a differential drive train was chosen as the core of the device. A linear dynamic model was then developed in order to predict system behaviour and estimate its main parameters. The dynamic analysis shows that the designed joystick can achieve the design parameters.Copyright © 2010 by ASME