Design of a haptic master device for teleoperation applications

Abstract

A haptic device with both force and torque outputs is essential in teleoperation applications. However, researchers do not have sufficient access to such a haptic device due to the facts that the commercially available ones are usually expensive and the state-of-the-art research prototypes are not readily reproducible outside the original laboratories. This paper presents the design and preliminary experimentation of the CombOmni, a haptic device with both force and torque outputs. The CombOmni is constructed from two Sensible Omni haptic devices for teleoperation tasks. The Omni device only provides force outputs and its original structure doesn't allow effective connection between two such units. With minimal modifications and a carefully designed stylus, the CombOmni could be easily built. Kinematics-based design optimizations and the system construction are presented. With the effectiveness of the proposed idea demonstrated via calibration and experimental characterizations in the near future, the CombOmni could become a viable option for a haptic device with both force and torque outputs in a cost-effective way.