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Haptic Device Development

Over the past few years, we have developed device hardware, interaction software and psychophysical experiments pertaining to haptic interactions with virtual environments (general reviews on haptic interfaces can be found in Srinivasan, 1994;1995a,b). Two major devices for performing psychophysical experiments, the Linear and Planar Graspers, have been fitted with additional sensors for improved performance. The Linear Grasper is now capable of simulating fundamental mechanical properties of objects such as compliance, viscosity and mass during haptic interactions. Virtual wall and corner software algorithms were developed for the Planar Grasper, in addition to the simulation of two springs within its workspace.


Another haptic display device developed previously, the PHANToM, has been used to prototype a wide range of force-based haptic display primitives. A variety of haptic rendering algorithms for displaying the shape and texture of solid surfaces have been implemented on the PHANToM. All the three devices have been used to perform psychophysical experiments aimed at characterizing the sensorimotor abilities of the human user and the effectiveness of computationally efficient rendering algorithms in conveying the desired object properties to the human user.



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Last Updated: May 8, 2002 1:45 PM Comments: David Schloerb