PASSIVE HAPTIC CONTROL DURING TELEOPERATION

The basis of haptic teleoperation focuses on augmenting a user's ability to perform a task in a remote environment. Using an energetically passive haptic master assures that the energy can only be redirected or removed from the human-manipulator pair, guaranteeing the user's safety. However using a passive master complicates the display of haptic forces due to the device's limitations. The master device cannot be controlled arbitrarily, but instead can only resist the motion of the human user. This research focuses on the use of a planar passive haptic device actuated via three magneto-rheological (MR) brakes. This device is being used to teleoperate a linear motor over the internet via a UDP connection. Both the master and the slave are controlled using National Instruments (NI) hardware and LabVIEW software. The following will present and compare two actuation schemes applying traditional active teleoperation rules for to the control of the passive haptic system. The inadequacies of these schemes will be illustrated, showing the need for a more complex control scheme to produce haptic feedback in a passive system.