Development of a desktop haptic interface for teleoperation and virtual environments interaction

This paper presents a lightweight haptic interface (200 g) suitable for tele-robotics and virtual reality applications. The kinematics architecture of the interface consists of a total of 3DOFs that are measured by endless-rotation potentiometers. As main novelty the end-effector includes three vibrating motors displaced with an angle of 120° one from another and capable to generate vibrations with a maximum frequency of 150 Hz. Due to a weak mechanical coupling between the motors, vibrations can be rendered in different directions, allowing the implementation of a 2-dimensional haptic feedback. Tests conducted on five subjects show the effectiveness of the interface in displaying the touch sensation and demonstrate how a combined haptic and visual feedback can enhance the execution of a simulated teleoperation task reducing the number of collisions.