One Degree-of-Freedom Haptic Device

Over the years, haptics has gained popularity as an additional feedback to enhance human experience of the environment. The extensive applications of haptics include virtual reality simulation, medical, education, manufacturing and rehabilitation. Many types of haptic devices have been developed to provide the variety of tactile feedback required for different applications. This paper describes the design and development of a low cost haptic knob, with only one degree of freedom, for use in rehabilitation or training hand pronation and supination using a microcontroller. This haptic knob can be attached with different form of end-effectors to cater for various training objectives and hand sizes or orientation.