Haptics and Teleoperated Systems

The Series Elastic Actuator (SEA) is bilaterally teleoperated by the Hapkit handle. The user is able to control the position of the actuator and feel any environmental force applied onto the actuator. If something were to impede the actuator, the user would feel an scaled applied torque on the handle. A big challenge was tuning the controls to damp the system enough to reduce oscillations while maintaining transparency.

Additionally, this testbed had not been used in the past 7 years, making reviving and interfacing this hardware with an Arduino a unique challenge in integration.

This is also an implementation of bilateral teleoperation using the Geomagic Touch Haptic device.

I simulated a virtual spring mode and a virtual wall mode on a Geomagic using Chai3d. In these modes, the Geomagic's movement would be restricted as if a spring was attached to the pen or as if a wall existed in a region of the workspace.